NFRs in Medical Imaging

TL;DR

This study identifies key non-functional requirements for AI-based medical imaging applications, emphasizing efficiency, accuracy, and usability, based on stakeholder insights from a Danish hospital.

Contribution

It adapts NFR frameworks to AI medical imaging, highlighting stakeholder priorities and the importance of specific NFRs for successful implementation.

Findings

Efficiency is the top priority among stakeholders.

NFRs like Accuracy, Interoperability, and Fairness are also critical.

Stakeholder engagement reveals specific NFRs vital for AI medical imaging.

Abstract

The diagnostic imaging departments are under great pressure due to a growing workload. The number of required scans is growing and there is a shortage of qualified labor. AI solutions for medical imaging applications have shown great potential. However, very few diagnostic imaging models have been approved for hospital use and even fewer are being implemented at the hospitals. The most common reason why software projects fail is poor requirement engineering, especially non-functional requirements (NFRs) can be detrimental to a project. Research shows that machine learning professionals struggle to work with NFRs and that there is a need to adapt NFR frameworks to machine learning, AI-based, software. This study uses qualitative methods to interact with key stakeholders to identify which types of NFRs are important for medical imaging applications. The study was done on a single Danish hospital and found that NFRs of type Efficiency, Accuracy, Interoperability, Reliability, Usability, Adaptability, and Fairness were important to the stakeholders. Especially Efficiency since the diagnostic imaging department is trying to spend as little time as possible on each scan.