Overview
ISO/TR 19669:2017 - Health informatics: Re-usable component strategy for use case development defines a methodology for creating, capturing and re-using modular use‑case components in health and healthcare contexts. The Technical Report provides a basic use case template, techniques for identifying and cataloguing reusable elements (actors, roles, scenarios, event steps, actions, data objects/elements, requirements statements) and guidance for software (a use case authoring tool) to support the approach.
Keywords: ISO/TR 19669:2017, health informatics, re-usable components, use case development, use case template, use case authoring tool, requirements engineering.
Key topics and technical requirements
- Use case fundamentals: Standardizes the structure and content of use cases for health/healthcare service provision, IT and software products.
- Component candidates and criteria: Defines characteristics that make a component suitable for reuse - identifiability, catalogue-ability, commonality and computability.
- Component types covered:
- Requirements statements (functional, information interchange, system)
- Actors and roles
- Scenarios, events and event steps
- Actions taken
- Data objects and elements
- Use case template and content: Includes prefatory material, initiative overview, scope (in/out), stakeholders, value statement, assumptions, pre/post-conditions, diagrams, base and alternate flows, dataset requirements, risks and issues.
- Methodology for capture/catalogue/re-use: Processes for deriving common components from existing templates and re-using them in new use cases (requirements, actors/roles, scenarios, events, actions, data elements).
- Progression to implementation: Guidance on transitioning from use case development through requirements phases to fulfilment and traceability (use case requirements phase, subject matter experts, analysts, and anchors for traceability).
- Tooling guidance: Recommendations for software functionality to author, manage and reuse use‑case components.
Practical applications
- Create consistent, traceable requirements for health IT systems (EHRs, interoperability projects, clinical workflows).
- Build reusable libraries of use‑case components across organizations and projects to accelerate analysis and reduce duplication.
- Support procurement, vendor selection and software development with standardized, machine‑readable use‑case artifacts.
- Improve collaboration between clinicians, business analysts, software engineers and standards bodies.
Who should use this standard
- Health informatics architects and system analysts
- Clinical subject-matter experts and workflow designers
- Software vendors and implementation teams
- Project managers and procurement officers in healthcare IT
- Standards developers and interoperability program leads
Related standards
- ISO health informatics family (refer to ISO catalogue for related standards on interoperability, terminology and data exchange).