Agile Software Development in Healthcare: A Synthetic Scoping Review

Abstract

Even though software can be found everywhere, software development has encountered many problems, resulting in the emergence of new alternative development paradigms. Among them, agile approaches are the most popular. While much research has been published about agile software development (ASD) in general, there is a lack of documented knowledge about its use in healthcare. Consequently, it is not clear how ASD is used in healthcare, how it performs, and what the reasons are for not using it. To fill this gap, we performed a quantitative and qualitative knowledge synthesis of the research literature harvested from Scopus and Web of Science databases, employing the triangulation of bibliometrics and thematic analysis to answer the research question What is state of the art in using ASD in the healthcare sector? Results show that the research literature production trend is positive. The most productive countries are leading software development countries: the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany. The research is mainly published in health informatics source titles. It is focused on improving the software process, quality of healthcare software, reduction of development resources, and general improvement of healthcare delivery. More research has to be done on scaling agile approaches to large-scale healthcare software development projects. Despite barriers, ASD can improve software development in healthcare settings and strengthen cooperation between healthcare and software development professionals. This could result in more successful digital health transformation and consequently more equitable access to expert-level healthcare, even on a global level.

Integration and Implementation of Scaled Agile Framework and V-Model in the Healthcare Sector Organization

“…The other articles mentioned refer exclusively to agile methods used in the health sector, which was our first research question (RQ1) for this article's solution. Despite this, some articles describe the barriers to implementing a combination of agile methods [56][57][58][59][60][61].…”

“…Also, a gradual software development process focused on changes, where customer collaboration is considered. The adoption of agile software development in the healthcare sector has encountered several obstacles, such as lack of documentation, insufficient advance planning, regulatory compliance, low traceability of process and system maintenance, and management of non-functional or insufficient requirements [60].…”

Decision Support System Software for Normal Pregnancy, in Maritime Medicine, Setting for Costal Situation, Recommended for Making A Decision Support System for Diving Fishermen

“…Difficult and rare expertise that can be met, but remain in the capacity of thought or competence, so that appropriate action can be immediately implemented. The following is an overview of the Development of software one type of development used is thematic analysis, from theory to software creation, and the benefits obtained [4,5].…”

The Digital Therapeutics Real-World Evidence Framework: An Approach for Guiding Evidence-Based Digital Therapeutics Design, Development, Testing, and Monitoring

“…The second overarching issue a new framework must address relates to regulatory issues. To date, regulation of DTx typically follows one of three approaches: (1) providing relatively limited guidance on evidence production, biasing toward the trustworthiness of DTx companies, as used in the FDA Precertification (Pre-Cert) Program [ 13 ]; (2) using emerging standards relevant to real-world data (RWD) and real-world evidence (RWE), such as reliance on data quality standards, use of RWD to efficiently run simulated clinical trials [ 14 - 17 ], and open science practices [ 18 , 19 ]; or (3) simply following variations of the 4-phase model [ 12 ] originally created for pharmaceuticals [ 20 - 22 ]. Payors are not providing adequate reimbursement systems, likely in part because of these issues, causing some DTx companies to declare bankruptcy [ 23 ].…”