Secure Tropos: An Agent Oriented Software Engineering Methodology for the Development of Health and Social Care Information Systems

Abstract

A huge amount of health and social care related information needs to be stored and analysed; with the aid of computer systems this can be done faster and more efficiently. As a result, computerised health and social care information systems are gaining popularity. The development of such systems, mostly so far, follows an ad-hoc pattern. However, in order to effectively deal with the characteristics of such systems such as size, security, unpredictability, and openness; appropriate software engineering methodologies and paradigms should be employed for their development. This paper defines a set of requirements that a methodology should demonstrate and it argues for the appropriateness of the Secure Tropos agent oriented methodology for the development of health and social care information systems. The applicability of the methodology is demonstrated with the aid of a real-life case study, the electronic Single Assessment Process system, an information system to support integrated assessment of the health and social care needs of older people. The application of the proposed methodology on the case study indicated that the methodology satisfies the identified requirements. Published (author's copy) Peer Reviewed

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Author(s): Mouratidis, Haralambos.
Article Title: Secure Tropos: An Agent Oriented Software Engineering
Methodology for the Development of Health and Social Care Information Systems
Year of publication: 2009
Citation: Mouratidis, H. (2009) ‘Secure Tropos: An Agent Oriented Software
Engineering Methodology for the Development of Health and Social Care Information
Systems’, International Journal of Computer Science and Security, 3(3) 241-271.
Link to published version:
http://cscjournals.org/csc/manuscript/Journals/IJCSS/volume3/Issue3/IJCSS-81.pdf
DOI: (not stated)

Information on how to cite items within roar@uel:
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Secure Tropos: An agent oriented software engineering
methodology for the development of health and social care
information systems.



Haralambos Mouratidis
h.mouratidis@uel.ac.uk

School of Computing and Technology, University of East London,
4-6 University Way, Docklands, E16 2RD, London, England





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Abstract
A huge amount of health and social care related information needs to be stored and
analysed; with the aid of computer systems this can be done faster and more efficiently.
As a result, computerised health and social care information systems are gaining
popularity. The development of such systems, mostly so far, follows an ad-hoc pattern.
However, in order to effectively deal with the characteristics of such systems such as
size, security, unpredictability, and openness; appropriate software engineering
methodologies and paradigms should be employed for their development. This paper
defines a set of requirements that a methodology should demonstrate and it argues for
the appropriateness of the Secure Tropos agent oriented methodology for the
development of health and social care information systems. The applicability of the
methodology is demonstrated with the aid of a real-life case study, the electronic Single
Assessment Process system, an information system to support integrated assessment of
the health and social care needs of older people. The application of the proposed
methodology on the case study indicated that the methodology satisfies the identified
requirements.

Keywords: Health and social care information systems development, methodologies,
software agents, Secure Tropos

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1. Introduction
Almost every nation is facing problems (managerial, administrative, and/or clinical)
with the delivery of health and social care to its citizens [1]. It has been argued [2] that
information technology can provide the answer to some of these problems.
Consider as an example the problems associated with the health and social care of older
people such as duplication of assessments, lack of awareness of key concepts of need
and fragmentation of care. To overcome these problems national policy in England is
the development of the Single Assessment Process (SAP). The Single Assessment
Process [3] aims to create closer working for providing primary health and social care
for older people and other groups. In a distributed health care setting different health
care professionals such as general practitioners and nurses, must cooperate to provide
older persons with appropriate care and they must also work closely with social care
professionals, such as social workers, because health and social care needs overlap
amongst older people. Moreover, a huge amount of data needs to be available to the
appropriate professionals to allow them to take the correct decisions.
It has been recognised [3] that computerising this process is a very important step
for the success of the single assessment process. Computer systems will help to
automate some of the tasks involved, such as the management of the health and social
care teams, and the appointments’ procedures; as well as allowing to store and analyse
important information faster and more efficiently, thus giving health and social care
professionals more time for the actual care of the older people.
Because of the advantages introduced by the use of computerised systems, such as
the ones described above, there is a tendency to develop computerised information

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systems for every area of the health and social care sector, from systems to link General
Practitioners’ information to systems which provide support to care assistants.
However, such systems demonstrate an inevitable complexity due to their
characteristics, such as size (due to the large amount of data and information that needs
to be stored as well as the large amount of processes involved), security (privacy of
health and social care information has been widely recognised as one of the important
issues for the health and social care sector), unpredictability (the health and social care
sector is by nature unpredictable due to its dynamic environment), and openness (due to
their wide interconnection with other systems, such as police registers). Therefore,
system developers must employ software engineering methodologies to assist them
during the development of a system by providing, for instance, methods to elicit the
system requirements and develop a design that meets these requirements.
Nevertheless, most of the times, an ad-hoc approach is taken for the development of
health and social care information systems, partially because current software
engineering methodologies are not well suited for the development of such systems.
First of all, they fail to deal effectively with the complexity introduced by these
systems. Secondly, they fail to provide a clear ontology, which will allow both system
developers and users/stakeholders to actively contribute to the development of a system.
Thirdly, they fail to consider security as an integral part of the development process.
Therefore, it is important to develop methodologies that will overcome the above
limitations, and will allow the development of health and social care information
systems in an effective and efficient manner. In doing so, it is important to define the
requirements that a methodology for health and social care information systems should
demonstrate.

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