Agile Principles in Healthcare: An Analysis

This study analyzes the application of Agile principles in the healthcare industry to improve quality care and optimize treatment processes. It explores the benefits of Agile methodology in delivering efficient and timely healthcare services. The study also discusses the challenges and strategies for implementing Agile in healthcare organizations. The sources used in this study include research articles and case studies on Agile in healthcare.

ASSIGNMENT 3
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY AND PROBLEM STATEMENT
Student Name: _________________________________________________
Topic: _________________________________________________________
APA FORMAT
Review the following sources on APA formatting
 HU Library APA Guide
 Purdue OWL Annotated Bibliography
 Purdue OWL Paraphrasing
 Purdue OWL Citations
 Purdue OWL References
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following study makes an analysis of the application of Agile principles at the Healthcare Industry. This is to
deliver the improvement of quality care. It is seen that various priorities of the Healthcare sector have concentrated on
quality care. This is provided for various patients. Moreover, the industry has been found to be delivering the services
intended for the patient’s healthcare. Though Agile methodology in the sector, one is able to optimize the needs for
treatments and processes. This can be delivered efficiently and quickly.
At present all the patients are not found to be affording the medical treatments. This is because of the fewer
incomes and policies of insurances. Thus, it has been affecting the entire state of the nation’s economy. Hence, it is the
right of all the people to gain the easily accessible benefits of healthcare on time. The Agile methodology is able to
optimize the process of healthcare. It is useful for the treatment to provide to the patient on time.
Source 1.
Tolf, S., Nyström, M. E., Tishelman, C., Brommels, M., & Hansson, J. (2015). Agile, a guiding principle for health
care improvement?. International journal of health care quality assurance, 28(5), 468-493.
(https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/IJHCQA-04-2014-0044)
The agility tests of healthcare organizations lie in the effective assumption that the overall environment has
remained uncertain. It ranges from frequent changes to high unpredictability. Next, the reactive, proactive and
embracing of varies coping strategies are demonstrated in the article in various possible ways. This is to handle
specific uncertain scenarios. From the studies five organizational abilities are derived as the need for healthcare. This
is useful to utilize strategies in an optimized way. It also involves various transient and transparent links that are inter-
organizational in nature. Moreover, it includes customer focus and market sensitivity. Here, the management gets
support for various self-organizing staffs. Here, the organic structures have been responsive and elastic. This has also
included various kinds of flexible human and different resource capabilities. These are regarding timely delivery. In
this way, the innovation of Agile is shown an effective and the new paradigm. It has been following the lean and
required to be enhanced over the lean base. This can also act as complementary as the lean under distinct hybrid
strategies (Tolf et al., 2015). Again, environment uncertainty requires to get matched with various coping strategies
and various organizational capacities. This is for the design processes and responsive for the actual necessities of the
healthcare. It implies that agile and lean can be assimilated for optimizing the designing of healthcare for meeting
various variations in the lean and generate smart patient management. The authors have paid considerable values to
strategies for developing internal efficient under healthcare. Thus the analysis focus on the attention to value
GRAD 695 Problem Statement Assignment Nov 2017

strategies of particular efficiencies.
Source 2:
Lennerz, J. K., McLaughlin, H. M., Baron, J. M., Rasmussen, D., Shin, M. S., Berners-Lee, N., ... & Schmahmann, J. D.
(2016). Health care infrastructure for financially sustainable clinical genomics. The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics,
18(5), 697-706.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1525157816300861)
The analysis reveals that next generation sequencing has been evolving economically and technically to the
specific method of choice. This is regarding interrogating of the genome n inherited disorders and cancers. Here,
introducing the procedural set of codes for the overall genome sequencing and whole-exome has been a milestone.
This is towards the economically sustainable implementations of the clinic. Neverteless, the gaining of reimbursement
has been recently an important issue. It is seen as part of quality development initiative or implementing a new set of
codes, the Agile is adopted. Here, the methodology of development s been devised in software development. The
authors have deployed some distinct modules of functionality. These involve the reimbursement consultation,
reporting, testing, prebilling, accessioning, preauthorization, cost estimation and request review. Here, the feedbacks
are obtained through an anonymous survey. The survey done by the authors has confirmed the positive attitude for
the teams that are self-organizing. The article has further acknowledged the people and various interactions. They
have termed the infrastructure has the human pipeline (Lennerz et al., 2016 ). Apart from this, the nontechnical limits
have been presently restricting the availability and scope of various genomic sequencing clinical. This human pipeline
presented is an approach for the long-term economic sustainability of the clinical genomics. The authors have
presented a roadmap to overcome various nontechnical barriers that have been presently restricting the scopes and it
has included the availability of clinical genomes and various other developing diagnostic type of technologies.
Source 3.
Duffau, C., Grabiec, B., & Blay-Fornarino, M. (2017, October). Towards embedded system agile
development challenging verification, validation and accreditation: Application in a healthcare company. In
2017 IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering Workshops (ISSREW) (pp. 82-85).
IEEE.
(https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8109258/)
The article mentions that under various domains, having a greater level of risk of damage and injury at hospitals,
there is a strong necessity for assuring that the system can satisfy the formal requirements of quality. Under classical
V-Model, the VV&A tasks have been happening at the end of development measures. Though all the development
stages have needed the production of justification of documents and traceability, the testing can be done as the
finishing point of the entire process. Further, in this case the introduction of agility under the project has referred to
the development of the product quality and involvement of client at consistent time and cost. This depends on the
incremental and iterative development cycles. As a result the V&V tasks implemented once under V-Model can be
moved to various executions of the tasks under agile development. Under all the development cycle, the quantity of
justification and testing documents are required to manage the rises. For meeting the V&V requirements, every
evaluation involving those from prior iterations are needed to be replayed (Duffau, Grabiec & Blay-Fornarino 2017).
Further, the aspects of justification are to be widened and changed. This complexity can be introduced to
management. Due to the rise in expenses, there are terms of the effective human resources and overall length to test
time. Nevertheless, the cost optimization is considered as the tasks that is the vital particularly for the research and
development entities. This never has comprised of lots of V&V resources. It has required to concentrate on the
matters of innovation for surviving.
Source 4.
Kannan, V., Fish, J. C., & Willett, D. L. (2016, February). Agile model driven development of electronic
health record-based specialty population registries. In 2016 IEEE-EMBS International Conference on
Biomedical and Health Informatics (BHI) (pp. 465-468). IEEE.
(https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7455935/)
GRAD 695 Problem Statement Assignment Nov 2017

The authors mention that the change in payment system of the American healthcare. This is from various free-for-
service which is towards the value-based has rousingly made that costly. This is in terms of the development of the
registries of the patient for numerous kinds of specialized populations. It is to assess healthcare costs and utility.
Further, the current widespread adaptation of the EHRs or Electronic Health Records under the U.S. has made that a
possible construction. This is helpful for the speciality registry REHR-based reports and tools of collections. This has
been previously unfeasible through creating an abstraction of manual charts. However, the complexities under
speciality registry for the measures and tools of EHR with various involved stakeholders have been resulting in the
misunderstanding of requirements and constant requests of product changes. In this way, the users have been first
experiencing the tools under the real clinical workflows. These perquisites churn can still the development under
rollout of sociality registry (Kannan, Fish & Willett, 2016). The system modelling solutions and requirements
development is an effective method for eradicating the ambiguities. This also facilitates the shared analysis. It also
includes the evolution of design for meeting the needs that are newly-discovered. Thus, agile modelling has been
retaining the values by adding huge unsaved up-front modelling. This is for of interactive incremental modelling. This
subset of UML and different non-UML models are seen to be constantly helpful to design, create and iteratively
develop the HER-based speciality registries.
Source 5.
Converso, G., Improta, G., Mignano, M., & Santillo, L. C. (2015, September). A simulation approach for
agile production logic implementation in a hospital emergency unit. In International Conference on
Intelligent Software Methodologies, Tools, and Techniques (pp. 623-634). Springer, Cham.
(https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-22689-7_48)
The study explains that hospitals have been sweeping the perspective of management concepts. It is helpful to
concentrate on the complicated organizational structures. This can be developed for decreasing the wastes and raise
the efficiency of the provided services. Here, the assessment of the hospital system consists of two characteristics.
This involves the demand variability and leads time variability. Since it is seen that the policy of the innovative
management of the health system has been founded to be dented as lean, the entire characteristics determining has
not been ever permitting to gain a overall constant flow. Apart from this, it is the strategic aim of the overall lean. This
can be gained through the demand levelling and led time of production. Again, the management of innovative policy
of health system is also been denoted as Lean. This happens as the overall characteristics determine never permit to
active constant flow. This is the strategic aim of the lean. This is gained through the demand levelling and production
lead time that is repeatable and certain (Converso et al., 2015). Further, the management system has been seeming
to be contemplating due to the properties under Agile Manufacturing deployed to the sector of service. Thus, one
never has been the degree of health. It raises the necessity or simulating the policies. This is to find the best
representation of the health facilities. Thus, Agile is important, the model consisting of process groups running under
logical orders under defined time period or iteration. This consists of the feedbacks for the clients for a solution and
work validation.
Source 6.
Tolf, S. (2017). Lean, agile, and lean and agile hospital management: responses to introducing choice and
competition in public health care.
(https://openarchive.ki.se/xmlui/handle/10616/45887)
The above analysis indicates that the Agile has been portrayed as the latest paradigm that has been following the
lean. The agile strategies are found to be concentrating on managing the external scenario. This is done through the
embracive, reactive and proactive coping strategies. Further, the authors have investigated the organizational abilities
that are needed by hospitals or making optimal usage of agile strategies. Here, the authors have also found the
aligned internal strategy for developing the process. It has been spanning the organizational boundaries through the
narrow focus of productions. Further, the articles have highlighted unexpected and sudden political policies of public
health care and pressure from market motivating the hospital management. This has been already under lean and
operations. Besides, the authors have been looking forward for raising the agility. The authors have effectively
conceptualized the agility as the long-term capacity. This is helpful to adopt the scenario and manage the reductions
GRAD 695 Problem Statement Assignment Nov 2017

of budgets. The lean is analyzed as the capability of the hospital for performing the functions smartly (Tolf, 2017).
Lastly, the study shows that the mechanisms have been helping healthcare to turn into agile and lean. This in practice
has been the market-orientation for the market. It involves the use of the processes of the established production
with the organization-wide readiness to undertake the change. This also involves the quick transition ability and
flexible usage of human and physical resources.
Source 7.
Flood, D., Chary, A., Austad, K., Diaz, A. K., García, P., Martinez, B., ... & Rohloff, P. (2016). Insights
into global health practice from the agile software development movement. Global health action, 9(1), 29836.
(https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/gha.v9.29836)
The authors evaluate that the health practitioners throughout the world have been feeling frustrated regarding
present models of health research. It involves the implementation and delivery of surplus focus on particular
interventions. This is slow to deliver the overall health services. It must be done in that area and must adapt ill-
equipped to adapt the various local contexts. Through adopting the design principles from the movement of agile
software development and analogous measure is suggested in the article. This is helpful to develop health programs
(Flood et al., 2017). Moreover, it puts emphasis on tight integration taking place between the implementation and
researches. This involves the earlier development of health workers at the ground level and various beneficiaries. This
also involves fast iterative program development. The authors have put instances from fieldwork and illustrated the
efficiency of agile worldwide health.
The adaptation of the design principle from the movement of the agile software is an analogous approach. It is
helpful to develop the programs of global health. It emphasizes n tight integrating taking place between the
implementation and researches. This must be done o early involvement of the health workers at ground level. It also
includes programs beneficiaries and fast cycles of iterative program development. Through utilizing the instances
from the individual fieldwork, the potential agile global health is illustration. It also includes the reflections of trade-
offs, limitations and implications of the measures.
Adapting design principles from the agile software development movement, we propose an analogous approach
to designing global health programs that emphasizes tight integration between research and implementation, early
involvement of ground-level health workers and program beneficiaries, and rapid cycles of iterative program
improvement. Using examples from our own fieldwork, we illustrate the potential of ‘agile global health’ and reflect
on the limitations, trade-offs, and implications of this approach. Further, the study has reviewed the underpinning
principles of agile design from developing software. The authors have demonstrated the adaptation of the system for
the science of worldwide health deployment. The system is referred to like agile global health. This is beneficial for
the other implementers who are in search of designing, deploying and evaluating the rigorous worldwide health
programs contextually.
Source 8.
Maijala, R., Eloranta, S., Reunanen, T., & Ikonen, T. S. (2018). Successful implementation of lean as a
managerial principle in health care: a conceptual analysis from systematic literature review. International
journal of technology assessment in health care, 34(2), 134-146.
(https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-technology-assessment-in-health-
care/article/successful-implementation-of-lean-as-a-managerial-principle-in-health-care-a-conceptual-
analysis-from-systematic-literature-review/9E4907B50A12E93355F9A9F1BF0C43A8)
The study intends to determine and assess the properties of management and leadership related to the successful
lean thinking adaptation at the sector healthcare. Through considering the outcomes through the windshield idea
emphasizing on the tools, principles and philosophy of lean thinking. The evaluation is drawn. Besides, the authors
show that lean management and thinking are the factors in healthcare. It has conceptualized as capabilities and skills
like problem solving, empowering, making changes to happen, communicating, coaching, facilitating, supporting, and
being democratic, organizational success and organizational learning. Here, these represent advanced managerial and
middle-stage capabilities and skills. Further, as far as practical implications are concerned, the conceptual assessment
of the systematic review of the studies of management and lean leadership for certain traits as being typical while
GRAD 695 Problem Statement Assignment Nov 2017

adapting the lean thinking or health care (Maijala et al., 2018). Thus, the idea of the managerial windshield has been
helpful to categorize and evaluate the important managerial capabilities and skills to make the lean deployment. The
outcomes are advantages for educating and learning the expertise needed for lean transformation under the area of
healthcare. Hence, it is understood through Agile the healthcare never requires to understand everything regarding
the up front. This requires a common idea as one needs to go and how to get into that. Thus, agile project
management enables healthcare through hypothesizing solutions, develop them, examine them and make
adjustments. Thus one can continue forwards in an iterative way till it gains the intended outcomes of development.
Source 9.
McCaffery, F., Trektere, K., & Ozcan-Top, O. (2016, June). Agile–Is it Suitable for Medical Device
Software Development?. In International Conference on Software Process Improvement and Capability
Determination (pp. 417-422). Springer, Cham.
(https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-38980-6_30)
The software and medical device have been created with the help of adapting the suggested plan. This is the
software development approach of the lifecycle. It is lying on the basis of different variations of V-Model and
waterfall. The healthcare intending to satisfy the regulations requires to define the process of software development
and the processes are deployed across the overall development life-cycle. Again, the techniques of Agile development
has been reporting to provide the resolution at other sectors. They can resolve issues encountered under the industry
of medical device. Besides there are issues to use Agile for software development of medicine related to satisfying the
regulatory bodies. Moreover, the authors have highlighted the problems in a conventional medical device for
software development. Next, the study demonstrates the issues and highlights the agile practices that are adopted
successfully under the software industry of medical device (McCaffery, Trektere & Ozcan-Top, 2016). Hence, it is
evaluated that agile assimilates the stable backbone through dynamism. Thus Agile business can be characterized
through resilience, fast decision making and the act of empowerment. Again, the other quadrants have been
reflecting the various imbalances taking place between dynamism and stability. Apart from this, the hospital's weal on
attributes has been lacking the leadership and coordination for seizing the scopes. Nonetheless, bureaucratic
healthcare companies are sometimes slow to adapt to those changes.
Source 10.
Jamot, M., & Pettersson, M. (2016). Agile challenges within regulated healthcare environments.
(http://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/238429/238429.pdf)
The Agile methods have an increase in popularity under the development of healthcare software. It is because of
many benefits of conventional methodologies of water-fall like. Again, there are many issues and different
uncertainties that are faced by practitioners. The study aha performed the case study to determine the issues that are
faced by various practitioners while working on that. With the encountered issues, the article demonstrates as they
are common to all the people. Besides, it tries to solve various issues like keeping that to an agile approach. However,
the authors seek no literature for treating the issues to fit the regulatory bodies (Jamot & Pettersson, 2016). Again,
the analysis ends through finding the necessities for the companies to work under-regulated healthcare scenarios. At
first there are necessities to perform more research on that. Next, there are necessities for more guidelines and
resources that explain how the agile, under-regulated healthcare scenario has been under working, At last, there are
necessity or development the current regulatory document for emphasizing better support for the agile method of
working.
Conclusion:
It is understood that the worldwide health practitioners have been feeling frustrated for the research, delivery
and deploying the overly concentrated on particular intervention. However, tight integration between research and
implementation is not found which a huge gap for the above analysis is. The gaps has been also involving the
GRAD 695 Problem Statement Assignment Nov 2017

involvement of various ground-level health workers. It must also include various beneficiaries of programs and fast
cycles of the iterative program development.
GRAD 695 Problem Statement Assignment Nov 2017

References:
Converso, G., Improta, G., Mignano, M., & Santillo, L. C. (2015, September). A simulation approach for agile production
logic implementation in a hospital emergency unit. In International Conference on Intelligent Software
Methodologies, Tools, and Techniques (pp. 623-634). Springer, Cham.
Duffau, C., Grabiec, B., & Blay-Fornarino, M. (2017, October). Towards embedded system agile development challenging
verification, validation and accreditation: Application in a healthcare company. In 2017 IEEE International
Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering Workshops (ISSREW) (pp. 82-85). IEEE.
Flood, D., Chary, A., Austad, K., Diaz, A. K., García, P., Martinez, B., ... & Rohloff, P. (2016). Insights into global health
practice from the agile software development movement. Global health action, 9(1), 29836.
Jamot, M., & Pettersson, M. (2016). Agile challenges within regulated healthcare environments.
Kannan, V., Fish, J. C., & Willett, D. L. (2016, February). Agile model driven development of electronic health record-
based specialty population registries. In 2016 IEEE-EMBS International Conference on Biomedical and Health
Informatics (BHI) (pp. 465-468). IEEE.
Lennerz, J. K., McLaughlin, H. M., Baron, J. M., Rasmussen, D., Shin, M. S., Berners-Lee, N., ... & Schmahmann, J. D.
(2016). Health care infrastructure for financially sustainable clinical genomics. The Journal of Molecular
Diagnostics, 18(5), 697-706.
Maijala, R., Eloranta, S., Reunanen, T., & Ikonen, T. S. (2018). Successful implementation of lean as a managerial principle
in health care: a conceptual analysis from systematic literature review. International journal of technology
assessment in health care, 34(2), 134-146.
McCaffery, F., Trektere, K., & Ozcan-Top, O. (2016, June). Agile–Is it Suitable for Medical Device Software Development?.
In International Conference on Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination (pp. 417-422).
Springer, Cham.
Tolf, S. (2017). Lean, agile, and lean and agile hospital management: responses to introducing choice and competition in
public health care.
Tolf, S., Nyström, M. E., Tishelman, C., Brommels, M., & Hansson, J. (2015). Agile, a guiding principle for health care
improvement?. International journal of health care quality assurance, 28(5), 468-493.
GRAD 695 Problem Statement Assignment Nov 2017