Translating Advances in Medical Knowledge to Software Requirements : The Lead User Requirements Engineering Method - LURE

Software-based clinical information systems like electronic medical records (EMR) and computerized decision support systems (CDS) have become instrumental for modern healthcare processes. However, the functionality offered by these systems needs to change in order to translate new knowledge discovered in healthcare research into clinical practice, particularly when considering large changes such as -omics and integration of continuous sensor data. A crucial prerequisite for successful knowledge translation is a sound understanding of end-user requirements. One challenge is the potentially large knowledge gap between healthcare practitioners and healthcare researchers. We propose that the Lead User method can be adapted to close this gap and report on an application of that method to elicit the requirements for introducing genomic-based decision support functions in primary care EMR software.