Important Evaluation Factors of UML Tools for Health Informatics

Abstract

Health Informatics (HI) is a multidisciplinary field that uses health information technology (HIT) to improve health care systems. A system which is given careful thought during the design phase in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) covers the basic of the software design principles and caters for correctness and completeness of a system. Unified Modelling Language (UML) is a standard modeling language that is widely used in different industries; medical field included to support in SDLC. There are several UML modeling tools available out in the market, ranging from open-source tools to commercial tools. A common decision faced while applying UML in HI is the selection of an appropriate tool for modeling as it has a great impact on the overall success of an HI project. Appropriate tool selection can also be time-consuming. Because of these limitations, a framework for UML tool evaluation is introduced here for defining the suitability of UML tools for HI application. The objective of this research is to shortlist suitable UML tools specifically for HI related disciplinary regarding modeling effort required to complete a task correctly. Features and price list can easily be compared, but the productivity needs thorough empirical evaluation. This research presents a framework for an empirical study to evaluate the productivity of UML modeling tools suitable specifically for HI.