SDLC in Healthcare: Planning, Development, and Maintenance

This report explores the application of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) within the healthcare environment, highlighting its importance in planning, developing, and maintaining health IT systems. It details the various phases of SDLC, including planning, requirement gathering, designing, coding, testing, and maintenance, and provides an example of its implementation in a home care unit. The paper emphasizes the role of business analysts in understanding client requirements and the significance of management support, technical expertise, and well-defined procedures in ensuring program success. The document concludes that following the SDLC process is vital for healthcare organizations to effectively manage their software requirements, ensuring the delivery of high-quality and bug-free applications.

Running head: SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE USE IN HEALTH CARE
Software Development Life Cycle Use In Health Care
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1SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE USE IN HEALTH CARE
The Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) has undergone a numerous changes over
years. This paper has discussed the use of SDLC in the environment of health care. A best
example provided based on the health IT. For any software organization, SDLC is helpful to
make a software project. The organization can plan, develop, and maintain the specific software.
Today, this methodology has found so useful that the software product in the real world
environment follow the stages of SDLC. For any software organization, SDLC is helpful to make
a software project. The organization can plan, develop, and maintain the specific software.
Today is the time were the team in software industry will design, develop and will test the
software. With the use of SDLC the completion of the project has estimated cost and within time.
This software define every task require to develop and maintain a software.
Installation in hospital follows the SDLC process in a home care unit. In the home care,
the patient’s care has taken at patients home. This hospital process acquires and implements the
software and performs a better health care service. The process of SDLC has involved some
implementation phase and overlapping the testing. For example, the patients take their self blood
pressure by a hook up device. The result is then transmitted to the hospital electronically to
process, inspect and monitor immediately by the staff attendant. Later, clinicians visit the home
of the patient and monitor the process and routine inspection will be performed and maintain on
the technology.
Whitten, Bentley and Barlow viewed various forms of life cycle in 1994. They came up
with the phase of a software development life cycle to complete one’s project. Below are the
phases of SDLC that the healthcare organization to follow:

2SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE USE IN HEALTH CARE
Planning: The step for planning is made at the time when the need is identified. The concept
will be developing a plan.
Analyzing and gathering the requirement : The project manager and the stakeholder will
focus on gathering the requirement of the business. They will keep meeting with the users,
managers and the stakeholders and decide how and what system to use. Then they will decide
which data to input into or output by the system. Once the requirement is gathering, it is
analyzed for validating and makes some possibility to incorporate the requirement in the system
to develop. Finally, for the next phase of the model a document for specifying the requirement is
create.
Designing: In the designing phase, the health care organization will now design the system and
the software from the requirement that has gathered from the first phase. With the system design,
the organization can specify the system and the hardware requirement. By specifying the design
of the architecture, the system will be helpful in the next phase of the model.
Coding or Implementing: Coding is the main phase for the developer in the SDLC to start just
after receiving the documents of the design of the system.
Testing: When the organization is able to develop a code based on the requirement that was
gathered in the first phase, it will be tested to ensure that the product has solved the actual needs
of the requirement gathered. A system test, integration test, acceptance test and unit test is done
to check to address the requirements.
Maintenance: This is the final phase where the customer will use the system that the
organization has developed. It will maintain the product that has develop and solved from time to
time.

3SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE USE IN HEALTH CARE
Business analyst will undertake every project that follows this phase. They will make and
an appointment with the client to understand the requirement of the project needed in the heath
care. Later the information has kept in documentation format in MS words that represent the
activity diagram, use case diagram, data flow diagram. The business analyst will give the
requirement to the software developer to code accordingly and keep track of the project to ensure
that the developer has clarified everything about the project. Finally, when the project is
completed, it is send to the User Acceptance Testing. During this phase, the business analyst
will keep an appointment with the client where the client will check for bugs if any by installing
and performing it. In case of bugs found, the project will send back to the development team.
With the successful development of the SDLC, program success also develops. The home
health organization has successfully achieve,
Secure support of the management: It is the management that will dictates the need of the
business, the budgets and the product top-level buy-in.
Experts of the Technical and business can take the advantages : An expert programmer
knows very well about the SDLC model that is appropriate for the toolkits and the programming
language to use to make a successful software project. Eventually, business experts also
understand the required functionality and the overall demand of the particular software. In
addition to this, business expert will determine the cost saving over the products or processes that
will be shown by the software.
Focal point of the product has to determine : There are some programming part to which
priority is given more than any other parts. When developers are able to choose the important
elements and take decisions accordingly. If any issue arises, it compromises the overall software

4SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE USE IN HEALTH CARE
functionality. This ensures a point of strong selling in the software that has developed as
compare to products that provide mediocre services.
Well-defined procedures are as followed : At each of the phase, developer has clear
understanding of the goal along the method. It has accepted the tolerance to evaluate each of the
goals.
Proper documentation has developed for maintenance : Throughout the life cycle, a good
documentation will be developed and this will help for a success with the implementation.
Thus, the whole concept of SDLC helps in planning the overall development of software.
By following, the process of this SDLC the management of the health care will dictates the need
of the business. The above mention factors of SDLC have experts to develop and test coding and
the business analyst will incorporate or arrange meeting to test the software. With whole this
process if any such bugs found in the software. It will return to the developer to make necessary
changes and then the application has delivered back to the client. Thus, this concludes that an
SDLC phase plays a vital role in an health care organization to plan and maintain the software
requirement of the client.