Requirements analysis as innovation diffusion: a proposed requirements analysis strategy for the development of an integrated hospital information support system

The paper addresses one of the the challenges that must be overcome before IT can achieve its potential in the health care field, namely designing systems that meet user needs while reflecting a continuously changing organisational environment. The authors proceed by establishing a link between innovation diffusion theory and the requirements analysis stage of systems development and discussing how the absence of such a link might explain the frequent failure of available requirements determination strategies. The Grounded Theory approach is examined next as a possible requirements analysis strategy and its limitations are identified. Preliminary results are presented for seventeen interviews from one of the hospital sites. The paper concludes by outlining specific plans for the empirical evaluation of the proposed approach and posing some guiding questions for future research.