Vendor Solution

My Health Record is an online health tool and system that has been designed to improve the state of healthcare in Australia. The system stores the patient details and medical history and provides the diagnosis and treatment on the basis of the information that is stored. The system has been designed to be handled by the medical professionals to provide diagnosis as per the data sets. However, there is certain security loopholes associated with the system as the information may be accessed by the unauthorized entities as well.

Data Soft Logic

The proposed system may utilize Data Soft Logic as the vendor as it would provide the necessary healthcare facilities with the required security settings. There is also a great deal of customization that comes along with the software provided by the vendor.

• Web-based system without the need of any installation or complicated configuration
• 9% availability and uptime of the cloud
• Inclusion of all the clinical forms, such as PT, ST, OT, and many others
• Secure and easy billing system for faster processing of the payments (Datasoftlogic, 2018)
• Tracking and charting features along with the generation of alerts for the patients
• Customized security settings

PatientPop is the vendor that provides the doctors and medical professionals with the integrated set of tools and resources that may be required for providing health services to the patients.

The following features may be utilized for the proposed system.

• Appoint confirmations and reminders for the medical professionals
• Patient satisfaction surveys and feedback processes
• Online scheduling for enhanced patient experience (Patientpop, 2018)
• EMR Integration
• Social media integration and networking
• Inclusion of medical forms

The vendor provides integrated online health solution to the patients and the medical professionals which may be utilized in the proposed system as well.

• Security of the data sets to make sure that patient privacy is always maintained
• Management of alarm fatigue
• Enhanced communication mechanism with the patients (Vocera, 2018)
• Prioritization to critical patients and emergencies
• Strengthening of the staff safety
• Improvement of the OR efficiency and turnover

The proposed system will be deployed using the cloud platforms and will be designed as a cloud-based solution. The performance, flexibility, and usability that come along with the cloud solutions will play a significant role in this case. There are different cloud models that will be used in this case. However, it would be essential to make sure that the selection of the cloud-based model is adequately done. There are different types of cloud delivery models that have been developed. The primary three models include Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS).  

Out of all the three delivery models, the one that is recommended for My Health Record is Platform as a Service (PaaS). The decision has been taken on the basis of the strengths and weaknesses associated with the model (Pahl, 2015).

Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Strengths	Weaknesses
The PaaS vendor will be responsible for the initial investment and the machinery needed to develop and deliver the system. Therefore, the organization will not have to bear to burden of huge initial investment in the primary stage of the project.	There are mechanisms of data backups that will be maintained; however, there may be issues of data leakage and breaches that may come along on the information stored on the cloud.
The overall costs will be reduced as the cost of machinery will be eliminated and the organization will pay only for the services and platforms that will be utilized during the project (Walraven, Truyen & Joosen, 2013).	The integration with the other systems and components may come as an issue.
The updates will be installed by the PaaS vendor as soon as the updates will be available. This will reduce the probability of security risks and attacks.	In case of the failure of cloud services, the availability of the data may be impacted.
Agility and flexibility will be the two features that will come easy with the PaaS model of the cloud. The delivery will be quick and it will be easier to incorporate any of the changes.	Customer captivity may be a problem.
The specific business requirements will be met by maintaining reliability of the services and information at the top priority	Service Level Agreement (SLA) may be compromised.
Data backups will be scheduled and carried out automatically making sure that the availability of the system is never compromised	The flexibility that comes with PaaS does not match up to the flexibility of IaaS-based solutions (Singh & Kaur, 2013).
In case of technical risks and hardware failure, the ownership and responsibility will be on the PaaS vendor.	Lock-in to specific cloud environments
Internal entrepreneurship and dynamic allocation of the resources	The level of customer satisfaction may be impacted with the occurrence of security attacks.

There are also a number of cloud deployment models that are available and one of these models will be necessary for deploying the developed system. Three of the primary deployment models include private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid cloud. The health information is extremely sensitive and critical in nature. It is also required to abide by various regulations to make sure that the privacy of the health details is always maintained. The users of the proposed health applications will primarily be the patients and the medical professionals. In order to make sure that the health information is protected and the users have ultimate experience, the proposed cloud deployment model is hybrid cloud. It is the cloud model that is a combination of the public and private cloud (Jenkins, 2014). The hybrid cloud model will meet the requirements of the proposed system and will also be able to handle the security requirements at the top priority.  

Review – Cloud Based Solutions

SDLC is an abbreviation for Software Development Lifecycle. It is the lifecycle that is followed during the development of any program or software. There are primarily two categories of development approaches that may be followed in the lifecycle. These include predictive SDLC or adaptive SDLC.

Predictive SDLC is the set of software development methodologies or approaches in which the activities and processes are pre-defined. The procedure that will be followed in a project in terms of phases and stages will depend upon the same flow and there is lesser scope of modification that may be involved. It offers the advantages as

• It is possible to predict the impact and the execution of the next phase as per this cycle.
• Most of the plans and activities are planned in advance and a sequential order is usually followed to execute the same.
• It offers enhanced standardization  

Waterfall model for software development is one of the methodologies that come under the predictive SDLC category. It comprises of the phases as start-up, requirements analysis & planning, design, development, testing & implementation, and maintenance (Okoli & Carillo, 2012).

My Health Record is a system in which the requirements that will be associated with the system are known in advance. The use of predictive SDLC approach will provide the design and development team engaged with the project with the ability to implement the requirements in a step by step manner. However, it is possible that there may be a few changes that may be proposed in the advanced stages of the project.

There are also a few disadvantages associated with the approach:

• The incorporation of such changes may not be easy to perform with the use of a methodology under predictive approach.
• There are the sequential steps that cannot be altered during the lifecycle of the project
• A project is exposed to various forms of risks and attacks. Some of the risks associated with this one may fall in the categories as security risks, legal risks, quality risks, technical risks, and operational risks. The handling of these risks may also be an issue.

The second category of the SDLC approaches is the adaptive SDLC. This is the approach which is ad-hoc and value-based in nature and there is no defined flow or pre-determined set of steps involved in this case. The flow of the procedures and the choice of the processes are made on the basis of the project scenario and requirements. The procedure of an adaptive SDLC approach may vary from one project to the other. One of the popular adaptive methodologies is agile method for system development. The agile methods have gained a lot of popularity in the recent years because of the flexible and scalable product that they provide as an end result of the project. In this methodology, there are iterations or sprints that are carried out that focus on the sub-set of the overall requirements to achieve the final goals of the project (Townsend, Mennecke, Ashmore & DeMarie, 2018).

In case of the proposed system as My Health Record, the requirements and business case has been provided along with the project. The same may be used for the development of the system. The adaptive methodologies classify the entire set of requirements in small sub-sets so that short-term goals are defined which may be easier to achieve. The issues of dealing with the proposed changes in the advanced stages of the project will not be problematic in this case. The approach offers the advantages as:

• Any of the changes can be adequately handled.
• The methodology will include customer involvement and feedback at regular intervals.
• This is the feature that will enhance the user experience and the level of satisfaction.

SDLC Approach

The customers will be provided with the system modules in every stage and the feedback will be obtained. The comments in the process of feedback will be incorporated in the subsequent phases. As a result, the actual and expected values will not have any gaps.

There may be a few disadvantages as:

• Lack of monitoring and control
• Lack of standardization
• Difficult to implement

Conclusions 

The analysis is made on the basis of the requirements of the proposed system. My Health Record is a system in which the requirements that will be associated with the system are known in advance. However, it is possible that there may be a few changes that may be proposed in the advanced stages of the project. On the basis of the system needs and requirements, the proposed methodology is adaptive approach for system development. Agile methods may be used to develop the system. The issues of dealing with the proposed changes in the advanced stages of the project will not be problematic in this case. Also, the methodology will include customer involvement and feedback at regular intervals. The cloud models that have been recommended for the system are PaaS cloud and hybrid cloud. These models have been recommended because of the need of data and information security and availability for the system along with the other system requirements.

References

Datasoftlogic. (2018). Home Health Software | Home Health Agency Software | Data Soft Logic. Retrieved from https://datasoftlogic.com/solutions/home-health-software

Jenkins, R. (2014). Hybrid Public Private Cloud Computing for the Media Industry. SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal, 123(3), 56-59. doi: 10.5594/j18398xy

Okoli, C., & Carillo, K. (2012). The best of adaptive and predictive methodologies: open source software development, a balance between agility and discipline. International Journal Of Information Technology And Management, 11(1/2), 153. doi: 10.1504/ijitm.2012.044071

Pahl, C. (2015). Containerization and the PaaS Cloud. IEEE Cloud Computing, 2(3), 24-31. doi: 10.1109/mcc.2015.51

Patientpop. (2018). About Us – PatientPop. Retrieved from https://www.patientpop.com/about-us/

Singh, J., & Kaur, H. (2013). Study of Cloud Computing and Survey of PaaS and SaaS Providers. International Journal Of Applied Research On Information Technology And Computing, 4(2), 75. doi: 10.5958/j.0975-8089.4.2.007

Townsend, A., Mennecke, B., Ashmore, S., & DeMarie, S. (2018). An exploratory examination of modes of interaction and work in waterfall and agile teams. International Journal Of Agile Systems And Management, 11(1), 67. doi: 10.1504/ijasm.2018.10012516

Vocera. (2018). Mobile, Secure Communication. Retrieved from https://www.vocera.com/

Walraven, S., Truyen, E., & Joosen, W. (2013). Comparing PaaS offerings in light of SaaS development. Computing, 96(8), 669-724. doi: 10.1007/s00607-013-0346-9