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There are many music experiences for people with dementia and their caregivers including but not limited to individualized playlists, music and singing groups, dementia-inclusive choirs and concerts, and music therapy. While the benefits of these music experiences have been well documented, an understanding of the differences between them is often absent. However, knowledge of and distinction between these experiences are crucial to people with dementia and their family members, caregivers, and health practitioners to ensure a comprehensive music approach to dementia care is provided. Considering the array of music experiences available, choosing the most appropriate music experience can be challenging. This is an exploratory phenomenological study with significant Public and Patient Involvement (PPI). Through consultation with PPI contributors with dementia via an online focus group and senior music therapists working in dementia care via online semi-structured interviews, this paper aims to identify these distinctions and to address this challenge by providing a visual step-by-step guide. This guide can be consulted when choosing an appropriate music experience for a person with dementia living in the community.

Background: Despite recent advances in acute stroke intervention, secondary prevention strategies are lacking. Physical activity (PA) is the second-largest predictor of stroke and a cornerstone of secondary prevention therapies. Interventions to promote PA post-stroke include components aimed at reducing sedentary behaviour and increasing participation in lifestyle PA and structured exercise. Despite guidelines to adapt PA to individuals’ needs, there is no evidence on the empirical development of adaptive PA interventions post-stroke. This study will explore patient, caregiver and multidisciplinary healthcare professional perspectives on the design and delivery of adaptive, personalised PA interventions, delivered using a smartphone application, following mild-to-moderate stroke. Findings will directly inform the protocol of an experimental trial, using a novel adaptive trial design. Methods: A descriptive qualitative study will be undertaken to inform the design, delivery and subsequent acceptability of a smartphone application to reduce sedentary behaviour and promote PA post-stroke. Data will be collected via one-to-one interviews and focus groups and analysed according to a six-step thematic analysis. Findings will be reported in accordance with the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ) checklist. One-to-one interviews and focus group interviews will be conducted with three stakeholder groups: 1) People post-stroke, who are independently mobile, without communication and cognitive deficits, living in the community, and without other diagnosed neurological conditions. 2) Caregivers (formal and informal) involved in post-stroke care. 3) Healthcare professionals who are members of multidisciplinary stroke teams. Ethics and dissemination: Ethical approval has been granted by the Faculty of Education and Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee at the University of Limerick [Ref: 2019_10_03_ EHS]. Findings will be shared locally with all stakeholder groups, submitted for publication, and will inform the protocol and conduct for a novel and flexible experimental trial, examining the effectiveness of an adaptive PA intervention post-stroke.

Well-Being, Aging, and Health (WBAH) are important aspects of life that affect us all. The requirements for WBAH systems have also become a topic of common interest for researchers from different disciplines. This is unsurprising, given that health-related expenses often represent about 10% of a country's gross domestic product, according to the World Health Organization.1

Background Digital Contact Tracing is seen as a key tool in reducing the propagation of Covid-19. But it requires high uptake and continued participation across the population to be effective. To achieve sufficient uptake/participation, health authorities should address, and thus be aware of, user concerns. Aim This work manually analyzes user reviews of the Irish Heath Service Executive’s (HSE) Contact Tracker app, to identify user concerns and to lay the foundations for subsequent, large-scale, automated analyses of reviews. While this might seem tightly scoped to the Irish context, the HSE app provides the basis for apps in many jurisdictions in the USA and Europe. Methods Manual analysis of (1287) user reviews from the Google/Apple playstores was performed, to identify the aspects of the app that users focused on, and the positive/negative sentiment expressed. Results The findings suggest a largely positive sentiment towards the app, and that users thought it handled data protection and transparency aspects well. But feedback suggests that users would appreciate more targeted feedback on the incidence of the virus, and facilities for more proactive engagement, like notifications that prompt users to submit their health status daily. Finally, the analysis suggests that the “android battery” issue and the backward-compatibility issue with iPhones seriously impacted retention/uptake of the app respectively. Conclusion The HSE have responded to the public’s desire for targeted feedback in newer versions, but should consider increasing the app’s proactive engagement. The results suggest they should also raise the backward compatibility issue, regarding older iPhones, with Apple.

Background Contact tracing remains a critical part of controlling COVID-19 spread. Many countries have developed novel software applications (Apps) in an effort to augment traditional contact tracing methods. Aim Conduct a national survey of the Irish population to examine barriers and levers to the use of a contact tracing App. Methods Adult participants were invited to respond via an online survey weblink sent via e-mail and messaging Apps and posted on our university website and on popular social media platforms, prior to launch of the national App solution. Results A total of 8088 responses were received, with all 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland represented. Fifty-four percent of respondents said they would definitely download a contact-tracing App, while 30% said they would probably download a contact tracing App. Ninety-five percent of respondents identified at least one reason for them to download such an App, with the most common reasons being the potential for the App to help family members and friends and a sense of responsibility to the wider community. Fifty-nine percent identified at least one reason not to download the App, with the most common reasons being fear that technology companies or the government might use the App technology for greater surveillance after the pandemic. Conclusion The Irish citizens surveyed expressed high levels of willingness to download a public health–backed App to augment contact tracing. Concerns raised regarding privacy and data security will be critical if the App is to achieve the large-scale adoption and ongoing use required for its effective operation.

Older adults (OAs) are a growing and dominant part of the global population, with specific communication and usability needs. Information technology, such as smartphone applications, has the potential to help OAs stay connected, yet some designs do not appeal to this group of users. Current recommendations for the design of usable smartphone applications for OAs can be hard to apply and difficult to interpret. As a result, designers of smartphone applications do not have a clear set of recommendations for the design of smartphones for OAs. In this paper we elicit and transform usability trends and difficulties experienced directly by tech-savvy1 OA users, into an organised set of recommendations. To do this we conducted an empirical study in four stages: (1) Data extraction. Digital context is extracted through conducting Think Aloud sessions with tech-savvy OAs (aged 50+); (2) Data mapping. Digital content extractions are mapped against 7 key aspects of usability; (3) Validation. Validated mappings through inter-rater reliability testing; (4) Presentation. Presented resultant recommendations as design patterns. Applying this method resulted in a set of 131 Usability recommendations with some overlap, transformed into a set of 14 design patterns that can act as a starting point for designers and developers of smartphone applications for OAs, and for pedagogy. Three of these patterns are presented in this study.

ObjectiveThis study aims to gather public opinion on the Irish “COVID Tracker” digital contact tracing (DCT) App, with particular focus on App usage, usability, usefulness, technological issues encountered, and potential changes to the App.MethodsA 35-item online questionnaire was deployed for 10 days in October 2020, 3 months after the launch of the Irish DCT App.ResultsA total of 2889 completed responses were recorded, with 2553 (88%) respondents currently using the App. Although four in five users felt the App is easy to download, is easy to use and looks professional, 615 users (22%) felt it had slowed down their phone, and 757 (28%) felt it had a negative effect on battery life. Seventy-nine percent of respondents reported the App's main function is to aid contact tracing. Inclusion of national COVID-19 trends is a useful ancillary function according to 87% of respondents, and there was an appetite for more granular local data. Overall, 1265 (44%) respondents believed the App is helping the national effort, while 1089 (38%) were unsure.ConclusionsDCT Apps may potentially augment traditional contact tracing methods. Despite some reports of negative effects on phone performance, just 7% of users who have tried the App have deleted it. Ancillary functionality, such as up-to-date regional COVID-19, may encourage DCT App use. This study describes general positivity toward the Irish COVID Tracker App among users but also highlights the need for transparency on effectiveness of App-enabled contact tracing and for study of non-users to better establish barriers to use.

This case study paper describes the development and evaluation of a prototype, Golden Jubilants, a smartphone app. Golden Jubilants was built within a software engineering in healthcare project, ReDEAP, that aimed to identify a set of recommendations for the design of smartphone apps for older adults aged over 50. Prototype development and evaluation is a recognized way to elicit meaningful feedback from any user group. This tangible artifact was interactive and provided fruitful engagement for us as researchers, and for the older adults who participated. This short paper presents the prototype evaluation process, and techniques used to ensure older adult involvement. To conclude, we discuss four key recommendations for consideration by software engineering in healthcare researchers who are using prototypes in their research – develop the research project through public and patient involvement, harness the potential of established evaluation and testing standards, develop a needed and tangible prototype, and involve an external group to evaluate findings.

Background Digital contact tracing apps have the potential to augment contact tracing systems and disrupt COVID-19 transmission by rapidly identifying secondary cases prior to the onset of infectiousness and linking them into a system of quarantine, testing, and health care worker case management. The international experience of digital contact tracing apps during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates how challenging their design and deployment are. Objective This study aims to derive and summarize best practice guidance for the design of the ideal digital contact tracing app. Methods A collaborative cross-disciplinary approach was used to derive best practice guidance for designing the ideal digital contact tracing app. A search of the indexed and gray literature was conducted to identify articles describing or evaluating digital contact tracing apps. MEDLINE was searched using a combination of free-text terms and Medical Subject Headings search terms. Gray literature sources searched were the World Health Organization Institutional Repository for Information Sharing, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control publications library, and Google, including the websites of many health protection authorities. Articles that were acceptable for inclusion in this evidence synthesis were peer-reviewed publications, cohort studies, randomized trials, modeling studies, technical reports, white papers, and media reports related to digital contact tracing. Results Ethical, user experience, privacy and data protection, technical, clinical and societal, and evaluation considerations were identified from the literature. The ideal digital contact tracing app should be voluntary and should be equitably available and accessible. User engagement could be enhanced by small financial incentives, enabling users to tailor aspects of the app to their particular needs and integrating digital contact tracing apps into the wider public health information campaign. Adherence to the principles of good data protection and privacy by design is important to convince target populations to download and use digital contact tracing apps. Bluetooth Low Energy is recommended for a digital contact tracing app's contact event detection, but combining it with ultrasound technology may improve a digital contact tracing app's accuracy. A decentralized privacy-preserving protocol should be followed to enable digital contact tracing app users to exchange and record temporary contact numbers during contact events. The ideal digital contact tracing app should define and risk-stratify contact events according to proximity, duration of contact, and the infectiousness of the case at the time of contact. Evaluating digital contact tracing apps requires data to quantify app downloads, use among COVID-19 cases, successful contact alert generation, contact alert receivers, contact alert receivers that adhere to quarantine and testing recommendations, and the number of contact alert receivers who subsequently are tested positive for COVID-19. The outcomes of digital contact tracing apps' evaluations should be openly reported to allow for the wider public to review the evaluation of the app. Conclusions In conclusion, key considerations and best practice guidance for the design of the ideal digital contact tracing app were derived from the literature.

This paper reports on the progress in the project COVIGILANT, which is aimed at developing an evaluation taxonomy for Contact Tracing Applications (CTAs) for COVID-19 Specifically, this article describes the development of Usability, one pillar of the COVIGILANT taxonomy, discussing the classification and decision-making processes, and the initial model validation The validation process was undertaken in two stages First, we validated how the Usability pillar could be used to evaluate the Irish Health Services Executive (HSE) COVID-19 CTA While this supported many of the attributes that we had within the Usability pillar, it also identified issues We made amendments based on these, and undertook a second study, this time evaluating 4 CTAs used in other countries This has led to the completion of the Usability pillar, which can now be used to evaluate global CTAs Copyright © 2021 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda All rights reserved

Together with many success stories, promises such as the increase in production speed and the improvement in stakeholders' collaboration have contributed to making agile a transformation in the software industry in which many companies want to take part. However, driven either by a natural and expected evolution or by contextual factors that challenge the adoption of agile methods as prescribed by their creator(s), software processes in practice mutate into hybrids over time. Are these still agile? In this article, we investigate the question: what makes a software development method agile? We present an empirical study grounded in a large-scale international survey that aims to identify software development methods and practices that improve or tame agility. Based on 556 data points, we analyze the perceived degree of agility in the implementation of standard project disciplines and its relation to used development methods and practices. Our findings suggest that only a small number of participants operate their projects in a purely traditional or agile manner (under 15%). That said, most project disciplines and most practices show a clear trend towards increasing degrees of agility. Compared to the methods used to develop software, the selection of practices has a stronger effect on the degree of agility of a given discipline. Finally, there are no methods or practices that explicitly guarantee or prevent agility. We conclude that agility cannot be defined solely at the process level. Additional factors need to be taken into account when trying to implement or improve agility in a software company. Finally, we discuss the field of software process-related research in the light of our findings and present a roadmap for future research., Comment: Journal paper, 17 pages, 14 figures

Contact Tracing (CT) is seen as a key tool in reducing the propagation of viruses, such as Covid-19. Given near ubiquitous societal usage of mobile devices, governments globally are choosing to augment manual CT with CT applications (CTAs) on smart phones. While a plethora of solutions have been spawned, their overall effectiveness is based on majority population uptake. Unfortunately, their rapid deployment and the nature of the information they gather has prompted a variety of user concerns such as information privacy and Data Protection (DP). Therefore selecting an optimal solution to maximise user trust and uptake is crucial. In this work, we present our initial deliberations towards a CTA evaluation taxonomy for societal concerns. This is a subset of a larger taxonomy which is being developed as part of the Science Foundation Ireland project - COVIGILANT, which will ultimately be utilized to evaluate and compare numerous CTAs to select the optimal solution for a given population. In this paper we present our preliminary CTAs with respect to the societal concerns of security, data protection and transparency. We then elaborate on these CTAs by means of two illustrative examples in order to promote discussion, evaluation and refinement.

Digital Contact Tracing (DCT) is seen as a key tool in reducing the propagation of viruses such as Covid-19, but it requires uptake and participation in the technology across a large proportion of the population to be effective. While we observe the pervasive uptake of mobile device usage across our society, the installation and usage of contact tracing apps developed by governments and health services globally have faced difficulties. These difficulties range across the user-populations’ issues with the installation of the apps, us-ability and comprehension challenges, trust in the efficacy of the technology, performance issues such as the effect on battery life, and concerns about data protection and privacy. In this work, we present our findings from a comprehensive review of the online user feedback relating to the initial release of the HSE Contact Tracker app, in an effort to inform later iterations and thus help sustain and potentially increase usage of the technology. While this might seem quite tightly scoped to the Irish context only, this app provides the basis for apps in many jurisdictions in the United States and Europe. Our findings suggest a largely positive sentiment towards the app, and that users thought it handled data protection and transparency aspects well. But feedback also suggested that users would appreciate more targeted feedback,more proactive engagement and also suggested that both the ‘android-battery’ issue and the backward-compatibility issue with iPhones seriously impacted retention/uptake of the app respectively.

Background: Contact tracing remains a critical part of controlling the spread of COVID-19. Many countries have developed novel software applications (Apps) in an effort to augment traditional contact tracing methods. Aim: To conduct a national survey of the Irish population to examine barriers and levers to the use of a contact tracing App.Methods: Adult participants were invited to respond via an online survey weblink sent via email and messaging Apps and posted on our university website and on popular social media platforms. Results: A total of 8,088 responses were received, with all 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland represented. 54% of respondents said they would definitely download a contact tracing App, while 30% said they would probably download a contact tracing App. 95% of respondents identified at least one reason for them to download the App, with the most common reasons being the potential for the App to help family members and friends and a sense of responsibility to the wider community. 59% identified at least one reason not to download the App, with the most common reasons being fear that technology companies or the government might use the App technology for greater surveillance after the pandemic.Conclusion: Irish citizens surveyed express high levels of willingness to download a public health-backed App to augment contact tracing. Concerns raised regarding privacy and data security will be critical if the App is to achieve the large-scale adoption and ongoing use required for its effective operation.

Identify factors that influence the task allocation activity of a GSD project.Implement an SLR and questionnaire survey methodologies to collect evidence.Identify 11 factors that influence the task allocation activity in a GSD project.The results indicate that the SLR findings and the industry experts feedback are aligned.The results are analyzed in relation to centralized and distributed project structures. ContextPlanning and managing task allocation in Global Software Development (GSD) projects is both critical and challenging. To date, a number of models that support task allocation have been proposed, including cost models and risk-based multi-criteria optimization models. ObjectiveThe objective of this paper is to identify the factors that influence task allocation in the GSD project management context. MethodFirst, we implemented a formal Systematic Literature Review (SLR) approach and identified a set of factors that influence task allocation in GSD projects. Second, a questionnaire survey was developed based on the SLR, and we collected feedback from 62 industry practitioners. ResultsThe findings of this combined SLR and questionnaire survey indicate that site technical expertise, time zone difference, resource cost, task dependency, task size and vendor reliability are the key criteria for the distribution of work units in a GSD project. The results of the t-test show that there is no significant difference between the findings of the SLR and questionnaire survey. However, the industry study data indicates that resource cost and task dependency are more important to a centralized GSD project structure while task size is a key factor in a decentralized GSD project structure. ConclusionGSD organizations should try to consider the identified task allocation factors when managing their global software development activities to better understand, plan and manage work distribution decisions.

Pharmacy plays a pivotal role in supporting acute clinical care pathways. However, across hospital environments, pharmacies are often stretched by growing service demands and conflicted by increased medication and service costs. Ultimately, such factors contribute towards process inefficiencies that impact on the provision of healthcare services. Following a literature review, we examined clinical pharmacy services by undertaking three acute hospital pharmacy case studies. We adopted an ethnographic approach, observing and interviewing pharmacists, pharmacy staff and nurses. With a view to improving healthcare information systems (ISs), we identified the enablers and barriers in service efficiency, thus identifying opportunities for pharmacy IS implementation across acute hospital environments. The findings also reveal some of the key enablers and barriers towards the introduction of hospital IS innovation. We present recommendations to overcome such barriers.

peer-reviewed The full text of this article will not be available in ULIR until the embargo expires on the 20/08/2021 In Global Software Development (GSD), the additional complexity caused by global distance requires processes to ease collaboration difficulties, reduce communication overhead, and improve control. How development tasks are broken down, shared and prioritized is key to project success. While the related literature provides some support for architects involved in GSD, guidelines are far from complete. This paper presents a GSD Architectural Practice Framework reflecting the views of software architects, all of whom are working in a distributed setting. In-depth interviews with architects from seven different GSD organizations revealed a complex set of challenges and practices. We found that designing software for distributed teams requires careful selection of practices that support understanding and adherence to defined architectural plans across sites. Teams used Scrum which aided communication, and Continuous Integration which helped solve synchronization issues. However, teams deviated from the design, causing conflicts. Furthermore, there needs to be a balance between the self-organizing Scrum team methodology and the need to impose architectural design decisions across distributed sites. The research presented provides an enhanced understanding of architectural practices in GSD companies. Our GSD Architectural Practice Framework gives practitioners a cohesive set of warnings, which for the most part, are matched by recommendations. ACCEPTED peer-reviewed

Background: Agile methods are no longer restricted to small projects and co-located teams. The last decade has seen the spread of agile into large scale, distributed and regulated domains. Many case studies show successful agile adoption in GSD, however, taken as a whole, it remains unclear how widespread this trend is, and what form the agile adoption takes in a global software development (GSD) setting. Aims: Our objective is to gain a deeper understanding of how organisations adopt agile development methods in distributed settings. Specifically we aim to plot the current development process landscape in GSD. Method: We analyse industrial survey data from 33 different countries collected as part of the project that explored the wider use of hybrid development approaches in software development. We extract and analyse the results of 263 surveys completed by participants involved in globally distributed projects. Results: In our sample, 72 of globally distributed projects implement a mix of both agile and traditional approaches (termed `hybrid'). 25 of GSD organisations are predominantly agile, with only very few (5) opting for traditional approaches. GSD projects that used only agile methods tended to be very large. Conclusions: Globally Distributed Software Development (and project size) is not a barrier to adopting agile practices. Yet, to facilitate project coordination and general project management, many adopt traditional approaches, resulting in a hybrid approach that follows defined rules., To appear, Proceedings of the International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM 2019)

Context: Global software development (GSD), although now a norm in the software industry, carries with it enormous challenges mostly regarding communication and coordination. Aforementioned challenges are highlighted when there is a need to transfer knowledge between sites, particularly when software artifacts assigned to different sites depend on each other. The design of the software architecture and associated task dependencies play a major role in reducing some of these challenges. Objective: The current literature does not provide a cohesive picture of how the distributed nature of software development is taken into account during the design phase: what to avoid, and what works in practice. The objective of this paper is to gain an understanding of software architecting in the context of GSD, in order to develop a framework of challenges and solutions that can be applied in both research and practice. Method: We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) that synthesises (i) challenges which GSD imposes on software architecture design, and (ii) recommended practices to alleviate these challenges. Results: We produced a comprehensive set of guidelines for performing software architecture design in GSD based on 55 selected studies. Our framework comprises nine key challenges with 28 related concerns, and nine recommended practices, with 22 related concerns for software architecture design in GSD. These challenges and practices were mapped to a thematic conceptual model with the following concepts: Organization (Structure and Resources), Ways of Working (Architecture Knowledge Management, Change Management and Quality Management), Design Practices, Modularity and Task Allocation. Conclusion: The synthesis of findings resulted in a thematic conceptual model of the problem area, a mapping of the key challenges to practices, and a concern framework providing concrete questions to aid the design process in a distributed setting. This is a first step in creating more concrete architecture design practices and guidelines. acceptedVersion

Context Global Software Development (GSD) is the process whereby software is developed by different teams located in various parts of the globe. One of the major reasons for GSD project failure is that a number of organizations endorse global development prior to understanding project management challenges for the global activity. Objective The objective of this paper is to identify the challenges, from the client and vendor perspectives, which can undermine the successful management of GSD projects. Method We followed a two-phase approach: we first identified the challenges via a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) and then the identified challenges were validated using a questionnaire-based survey. Results Through both approaches, we identified 19 challenges important to the success of GSD project management. A comparison of the challenges identified in client and vendor organizations indicates that there are more similarities than differences between the challenges. Our results show a positive correlation between the ranks obtained from the SLR and the questionnaire ((r s (19) = 0.102), p = 0.679). The results of t -test (i.e., t = 0.299, p = 0.768 > 0.05) show that there is no significant difference between the findings of SLR and questionnaire. Conclusions GSD organizations should try to address the identified challenges when managing their global software development activities to increase the probability of project success.

This paper reviews current literature on the bed management role seeking to highlight developments most likely to increase efficiency. A reduction in the number of in-patient beds due in part to innovative surgical techniques is causing increased pressure on a very finite resource. This requires a greater emphasis on the bed management role and the wider hospital team. A number of studies are presented describing initiatives implemented to support bed management both operationally, procedurally and from a decision support approach. Finally, literature on people, process technology approaches in healthcare is presented, which could support a sustainable improvement in the role.

peer-reviewed Technological advancements have accelerated the deployment of healthcare information systems (HIS) with the potential to enhance productivity, lower costs, reduce medication errors, and ease the manpower strain on the healthcare industry. Although HIS can provide various benefits to healthcare professionals and patients, there is a high occurrence (50%) of unsuccessful HIS projects and problems with initiating their adoption. To investigate this phenomenon, this paper identifies decision-making theories, their short-coming of adopting HIS in healthcare organisations and decision-making facets that influence the adoption. These review will shed some light for future researchers to conceptualize, distinguish and comprehend the underlying decision-making models and theories that may affect the future application of HIS adoption. A literature search was conducted to identify studies presenting HIS decision-making adoption theories/models in a healthcare environment. From synthesis of 26 studies, we identified five major facets that provides a structure to organize and capture information on the decision-making and adoption of HIS. The themes presented here provide a starting point in understanding the decision-making adoption theories, their major facets and their short-coming in adopting HIS. This will facilitate our future research on decision-making framework for the adoption of HIS.

We study software development projects in supplier firms.Project managers assign a project start date differently even within one company.A project may lose knowledge, profitability, and be late before its start.We suggest definitions related to project start and project start date.We emphasise the need to study software development projects in a business context. A software development project may be considered a failure because it is late. In order to be able to assess this, a project start date should be known. The purpose of the paper is to study software development projects in a business context and especially project start from the supplier's perspective. In our research, we observed different ways of assigning project start but did not observe any company-level instructions for defining it. We raise questions regarding knowledge loss, project profitability, and having a project running late even before the project has started. We provide definitions for project start and project start date, and define boundaries for software supplier's project start-up. With this paper, we emphasise the need to study software development projects in a business context. The paper contributes to research on project management success, the software project business, and the management of a software project in a business context.

peer-reviewed Being able to trust technology is of vital importance to its potential users. This is particularly true within the healthcare sector where lives increasingly depend on the correct application of technology to support clinical decision-making. Despite the risk posed by improper use of technology in the healthcare domain, there is a lack of research that examines why healthcare professionals trust healthcare technology. Therefore, there is little evidence regarding the key trust facilitators and barriers. In this paper, we investigate the concept of trust within a healthcare technology context. We conducted a systematic mapping study to identify relevant trust facilitators and barriers in published work in well-known bibliographic databases. Our results present a synthesis of 47 studies that describe trust factors that healthcare professionals associate with healthcare technology. Facilitators include compatibility and perceived systems usefulness, while barriers include privacy concerns and lack of knowledge. We conclude that HCT trust is complex, multi-dimensional, and influenced by a variety of factors at individual and organizational levels. peer-reviewed

Connected Health is an emerging and rapidly developing field which has the potential to transform healthcare service systems by increasing its safety, quality and overall efficiency. From a healthcare perspective, process improvement models have mainly focused on the static workflow viewpoint. The objective of this article is to study and model the dynamic nature of healthcare delivery, allowing us to identify where potential issues exist within the service system and to examine how Connected Health technological solutions may support service efficiencies. We explore the application of social network analysis (SNA) as a modelling technique which captures the dynamic nature of a healthcare service. We demonstrate how it can be used to map the ‘Careflow Network’ and guide Connected Health innovators to examine specific opportunities within the healthcare service. Our results indicate that healthcare technology must be correctly identified and implemented within the Careflow Network to enjoy improvements in service delivery. Oftentimes, prior to making the transformation to Connected Health, researchers use various modelling techniques that fail to identify where Connected Health innovation is best placed in a healthcare service network. Using SNA allows us to develop an understanding of the current operation of healthcare system within which they can effect change. It is important to identify and model the resource exchanges to ensure that the quality and safety of care are enhanced, efficiencies are increased and the overall healthcare service system is improved. We have shown that dynamic models allow us to study the exchange of resources. These are often intertwined within a socio-technical context in an informal manner and not accounted for in static models, yet capture a truer insight on the operations of a Careflow Network.

Practitioners perceive research on global software engineering as useful, yet they rarely read academic articles on the topic. Instead, they look to books, blogs, colleagues, forums, and their own experiences for solutions. Making research more relevant to practice requires a new mindset.

The Global Teaming Model (GTM) is a CMMI (R)-style process model comprising 64 recommendations that synthesizes empirical evidence on how to overcome the obstacles faced by global software development projects. While the Global Teaming Model recommendations specify what a global software development project should do, it does not specify how. In order to provide concrete guidance for projects that wish to employ Agile methods in a global software development context, we asked, could the practices described in the Scaled Agile Framework (R) (SAFe (R)) provide examples for how GTM recommendations could be realized? We found 79 of 90 SAFe (R) Team level practices partly or wholly implement GTM recommendations. The SAFe (R) mapping onto the Global Teaming model provides a concrete roadmap for teams who need specific advice on how to implement GTM practices that have been identified as necessary to their success.

Global software development (GSD) is increasingly the norm. As firms expand into new markets overseas, acquire companies in different countries, and recruit talented developers in new locations, projects become distributed by necessity. As projects become increasingly distributed, and include external participants such as outsourcing vendors, conventional top-down management oversight and control becomes more difficult. How can organizations ensure that the activities of all parties involved are aligned with the strategic objectives and values of a software development undertaking? The Global Teaming Model is a framework that specifies practices and recommendations for Global Software Development. As such, it serves as a means to organize GSD practices relevant to Software Development Governance. We conducted a case study of a small team engaged in Global Software Development, identifying governance shortcomings. Then, we used the Global Teaming Model to identify governance practices that would address those shortcomings. We identified several aspects of the team's interactions with other teams in the company that would be improved by recommendations from the Global Teaming Governance Model. The Global Teaming Model provides a blueprint for Software Development Governance that organizations seeking to globalize their current development projects in a controlled way can use to implement good Software Development Governance.

In this paper, we discuss how IBM is working with Lero -- the Irish Software Research Centre and the Ireland Smart Aging Exchange. The proposed project will observe, analyse and coordinate Smarter Care models as they apply to active ageing and healthy living, building on models taken from Connected Health. We consider these as socio-technical models, extending from the older person's home and family into wider society. They can and will include healthcare models, but will also include further elements such as social interaction, exercise, intellectual requirements and personal assistance.

In this paper, we present information about two related software tools which solves two healthcare problems. In the first case, we have developed a Connected Health software solution, Homesafe Care, to monitor long-term conditions, through connecting a patient to his / her General Practitioner -- a one-to-one relationship. Through discussion with an Indian-based charity, Varanasi Children's Hospital, we then realized that the software could be updated to support their cause, improving children's nutrition. However, this meant that the system had to be changed to support many-to-one relationships, where many children were being supported by one single care worker, and this information would be submitted to a central office.

In recent years, there has been significant growth in software companies across the healthcare sector developing new technologies to improve healthcare delivery and services. This has given rise to the emergence of Connected Health -- a new model for healthcare management. This also places considerable emphasis on the process of software development in supporting Connected Health. In addition, it highlights the growing reliance and trust we place on software to support healthcare decisions. However, unlike many other sectors, such as business and education, failure to align healthcare needs with software requirements can have devastating consequences on people's health and potentially cause death. Our research and experience with healthcare companies confirms the need to establish a Connected Health Innovation Framework using Design Thinking principles to a) support software developers in clearly identifying healthcare requirements and b) extend and enrich traditional software requirements gathering techniques. This paper presents an e-pharmacy case study and describes the impact this approach has within a Connected Health context.

peer-reviewed Background: The derivation of products from a software product line is a time consuming and expensive activity. Despite recognition that an effective process could alleviate many of the difficulties associated with product derivation, existing approaches have different scope, emphasise different aspects of the derivation process and are frequently too specialised to serve as a general solution. Objective: To define a systematic process that will provide a structured approach to the derivation of products from a software product line, based on a set of tasks, roles and artefacts. Method: Through a series of research stages using sources in industry and academia, this research has developed a Process Model for Product Derivation (Pro-PD). We document the evidence for the construction of Pro-PD and the design decisions taken. We evaluate Pro-PD through comparison with prominent existing approaches and standards. Results: This research presents a Process Model for Product Derivation (Pro-PD). Pro-PD describes the tasks, roles and work artefacts used to derive products from a software product line. Conclusion: In response to a need for methodological support, we developed Pro-PD (Process Model for Product Derivation). Pro-PD was iteratively developed and evaluated through four research stages. Our research is a first step toward an evidence-based methodology for product derivation and a starting point for the definition of a product derivation approach.

A hospital quality assurance program (H-QAP) assures compliance in the real-world clinical environment via evidence-based best practices in patient and software systems management. Software Systems Embedded within hardware devices are increasingly prevalent in healthcare settings. They typically integrate information from devices and applications that collect, store, manipulate, and report clinical data. Authorities such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulate software within hardware devices and the EU has recently deemed stand alone software to be medical device.

In this paper, we consider software development project success and failure from the supplier's perspective. First we clarified concepts in order to be able to exclude review articles on in-house projects, continuous services, the customer's perspective, and software product development, with the aim of providing valid results for supplier firms. We divided success criteria into project success and project management (PM) success, and, in seven articles, identified three success criteria from the supplier's perspective: customer satisfaction, short-term business benefits, and long-term business benefits. In contrast, no definition of software development project failure was found. Articles were found in seven different journals, showing that knowledge on software development project success from the supplier's perspective is fragmented. This impedes the growth of knowledge on this topic.

ContextService-Oriented Computing (SOC) is a promising computing paradigm which facilitates the development of adaptive and loosely coupled service-based applications (SBAs). Many of the technical challenges pertaining to the development of SBAs have been addressed, however, there are still outstanding questions relating to the processes required to develop them. ObjectiveThe objective of this study is to systematically identify process models for developing service-based applications (SBAs) and review the processes within them. This will provide a useful starting point for any further research in the area. A secondary objective of the study is to identify process models which facilitate the adaptation of SBAs. MethodIn order to achieve this objective a systematic literature review (SLR) of the existing software engineering literature is conducted. ResultsDuring this research 722 studies were identified using a predefined search strategy, this number was narrowed down to 57 studies based on a set of strict inclusion and exclusion criteria. The results are reported both quantitatively in the form of a mapping study, as well as qualitatively in the form of a narrative summary of the key processes identified. ConclusionThere are many process models reported for the development of SBAs varying in detail and maturity, this review has identified and categorised the processes within those process models. The review has also identified and evaluated process models which facilitate the adaptation of SBAs.

non-peer-reviewed More and more organizations adopt software product lines to leverage extensive reuse and deliver a multitude of benefits such as increased quality and productivity and a decrease in cost and time-to-market of their software development. When compared to the vast amount of research on developing product lines, relatively little work has been dedicated to the actual use of product lines to derive individual products, i.e., the process of product derivation. Existing approaches to product derivation have been developed independently for different aims and purposes. While the definition of a general approach applicable to every domain may not be possible, it would be interesting for researchers and practitioners to know which activities are common in existing approaches, i.e., what are the key activities in product derivation. In this paper we report on how we compared two product derivation approaches developed by the authors in two different, independent research projects. Both approaches independently sought to identify product derivation activities, one through a process reference model and the other through a tool-supported derivation approach. Both approaches have been developed and validated in research industry collaborations with different companies. Through the comparison of the approaches we identify key product derivation activities. We illustrate the activities’ importance with examples from industry collaborations. To further validate the activities, we analyze three existing product derivation approaches for their support for these activities. The validation provides evidence that the identified activities are relevant to product derivation and we thus conclude that they should be considered (e.g., as a checklist) when developing or evaluating a product derivation approach.

Software Product Lines (SPL) and Agile practices have emerged as new paradigms for developing software. Both approaches share common goals; such as improving productivity, reducing time to market, decreasing development costs and increasing customer satisfaction. These common goals provide the motivation for this research. We believe that integrating Agile practices into SPL can bring a balance between agility and formalism. However, there has been little research on such integration. We have been researching the potential of integrating Agile approaches in one of the key SPL process areas, product derivation. In this paper we present an outline of our Agile process model for product derivation that was developed through industry based case study research.