Agile Software Development in Healthcare: A Synthetic Scoping Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
The revised paper responds well to the main points raised by the previous review.
Author Response
Dear reviewer, thank you for your review
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
The paper has an interesting subject and for high visibility, it needs some improvements as follows:
In the Abstract section, the problem statement and the aim of the study should be clearly stated.
To justify the significance of the study and how this study is adding to the body of knowledge in the research area, the author is suggested to revisit and update the research problem(s).
It is important to underline the relevance of the paper for theory and practice, especially for the health care sector during some crises.
To further improve the Conclusions section, the author should discuss how the limitations of this study could be overcome and propose future research directions.
We suggest to the author see the following sources for improving the Background section:
Jurado Pérez, L.; Salvachúa, J. An Approach to Build e-Health IoT Reactive Multi-Services Based on Technologies around Cloud Computing for Elderly Care in Smart City Homes. Appl. Sci. 2021, 11, 5172. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11115172
Burlea-Schiopoiu, A., Ferhati, K., Adapting smartphone-based application for quality improvement metrics’ tracking in healthcare facilities as a managerial tool, in Innovative Smart Healthcare and Bio-Medical Systems: AI, Intelligent Computing and Connected Technologies, Editor Abdel Badeeh M. Salem, 2021. pp. 133-148. CRC Press - Taylor & Francis
Tanniru, M.R.; Agarwal, N.; Sokan, A.; Hariri, S. An Agile Digital Platform to Support Population Health—A Case Study of a Digital Platform to Support Patients with Delirium Using IoT, NLP, and AI. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 5686. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18115686
Good luck!
Author Response
I would like to thank the reviewer for constructive comments
In the Abstract section, the problem statement and the aim of the study should be clearly stated.
A clearer explanation of the study’s aim has been added to the abstract
To justify the significance of the study and how this study is adding to the body of knowledge in the research area, the author is suggested to revisit and update the research problem(s). It is important to underline the relevance of the paper for theory and practice, especially for the health care sector during some crises.
We added the explanation of how the study outcomes and the synthesized new knowledge can improve the theory and practice of using ASD in the healthcare sector
To further improve the Conclusions section, the author should discuss how the limitations of this study could be overcome and propose future research directions.
The conclusion has been extended according to the reviewer comment
We suggest to the author see the following sources for improving the Background section:
We reviewed the suggested papers and include their findings in the Background section
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
1. The literature survey section can be presented in a tabular format (highlighting the pros and cons associated with different software developing techniques for increasing the readability of the section. Do not forget to compare each one in tabular format for the better representation of the manuscript.
2. Challenges, limitations of previous works and research gap are not clearly defined.
3. Authors need to partially modify the abstract with the outcome of the results from the experiment.
4. The descriptions of the experiment section are too simple. There are only limited explanations, and the related analysis of the experiment is not weak, which make the readability poor.
5. If the presented methods is highly accurate, can you please provide some failure cases for each method? Discuss the underlying cause of these failure cases.
6. Discuss the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the paper selection.
7. A discussion of future extensions and applications of this work can be included in the conclusion.
8. The continuity is missing from the manuscript there should be a flow while reading the manuscript.
Author Response
I would like to thank the reviewer for the valuable comments.
The literature survey section can be presented in a tabular format (highlighting the pros and cons associated with different software developing techniques for increasing the readability of the section. Do not forget to compare each one in tabular format for the better representation of the manuscript.
Here I would first to point out that the review performed is a scoping review that has a different aim than a systematic or integrative review. Scoping reviews are more similar to literature reviews with the aim to identify knowledge gaps, scope a body of literature, and clarify concepts, volume, or characteristics of studies rather than to deeply synthesize published data. Secondly, the aim of the study was to perform an overview of the use of agile in healthcare not to compare it to other software development life cycles
Challenges, limitations of previous works and research gap are not clearly defined.
This part of the paper has been extended.
Authors need to partially modify the abstract with the outcome of the results from the experiment.
Abstract has been extended with the main study outcomes and conclusions
The descriptions of the experiment section are too simple. There are only limited explanations, and the related analysis of the experiment is not weak, which make the readability poor.
I would like to point out that no experiment has been performed, but the review of the available literature on agile software development use in health care. The steps performed in the scoping review are presented in pages 4 and 5
If the presented methods is highly accurate, can you please provide some failure cases for each method? Discuss the underlying cause of these failure cases.
The aim of our scoping review was to identify where the use of ASD in health care was successful and where gaps do exist based on the general analysis of available literature, and it is not the aim of scoping reviews to analyse single cases but point to the domains were failures/problems can occur in our case embedded medical software
Discuss the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the paper selection.
The description for inclusion and exclusion criteria was added
A discussion of future extensions and applications of this work can be included in the conclusion.
Future work has been added to the conclusion.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
GOOD LUCK!
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
1. The authors have correctly addressed the issues I made w.r.t. to the previous version of the manuscript. I thank the authors for their effort in improving the manuscript. The only pending issue is a thorough revision of language.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper offers an overall state of the art of Agile Software Development (ASD) in Health Care. This appears to be a first, or one of the first of its kind and, therefore, it is a good contribution to the understanding the ASD in Health Care as a research field.
A second contribution claimed by the author is the augmentation of the scoping framework with triangulation of bibliometric mapping and thematic analysis. Details about how exactly the triangulation has been done are not provided.
The description of the research field appears to be somehow simple and predictable. However, this description has the important advantage that the assessment is synthesized from verifiable statistical information based on known research paper databases.
A closer inspection of the study provides a more in-depth description of the historical development of the analyzed research field, of the hot research topics that define the field, and a map of institutional and country cooperation relations in the filed. Therefore, a reliable overview of the ASD in health care as a research field is provided.
The research background section remains unfocused. This covers the general ASD field, with little or no reference to the ASD in health care field, which makes the focus of the paper. In conclusion, we don’t have a research background in the research area of the paper.
While the author claims that there is no scoping review in ASD in health care and theirs is the first, there definitely must be studies of this kind covering some subdomains in health care and therefore, these should have been taken into consideration in the research background. In case there is really no study of this kind, the reasons for this should be briefly analyzed and then explained how challenges have been overcome by the current study.
The paper correctly explains the limitations of the current study and how different results can influence the outcomes of other future studies.
The paper is in a rough draft stage. English needs a thorough review. The paragraph counting and steps counting in explanations must be verified too so that when these are referred within the paper can be found.
The conclusion needs to make a more in-depth and synthetic summary of the research results. This doesn’t mean providing more details but allowing the reader to grasp the depth of the conducted research.
Author Response
A second contribution claimed by the author is the augmentation of the scoping framework with triangulation of bibliometric mapping and thematic analysis. Details about how exactly the triangulation has been done are not provided.
The methodology section has been rewritten and details about triangulation added
The research background section remains unfocused. This covers the general ASD field, with little or no reference to the ASD in health care field, which makes the focus of the paper. In conclusion, we don’t have a research background in the research area of the paper. While the author claims that there is no scoping review in ASD in health care and theirs is the first, there definitely must be studies of this kind covering some subdomains in health care and therefore, these should have been taken into consideration in the research background. In case there is really no study of this kind, the reasons for this should be briefly analyzed and then explained how challenges have been overcome by the current study.
ASD background in medical settings has been added
The paper is in a rough draft stage. English needs a thorough review. The paragraph counting and steps counting in explanations must be verified too so that when these are referred within the paper can be found.
English was proofread and the paragraphing corrected
Reviewer 2 Report
Well written novel scoping review on Agile software development in health care
Author Response
Dear reviewer, thankyou for your comments, Paper has benen proofread and English has been improved
Reviewer 3 Report
The article deals with the interesting and topical subject of agile methods in software development. However, many elements of the article require complete improvement.
Generally, the author did not present much new contribution. The review search query is too general. Besides, the analysis of the results is too shallow. The presentation side of the manuscript is its weak point. In my opinion figures 2, 3, 4, and 5 do not bring much value.
The structure of the paper is correct but the "Discussion and limitations" section is missing.
Moreover, the author too extensively cites his own papers.
The English used in the manuscript requires a lot of effort to correct as far as the style and punctuation are concerned.
The manuscript is not mature enough to be published in the Applied Sciences journal.
I recommend rejecting the manuscript.
Author Response
Generally, the author did not present much new contribution. The review search query is too general. Besides, the analysis of the results is too shallow.
After the search corpus was additionally analysed and all publications not related to agile software development in health care excluded
The presentation side of the manuscript is its weak point. In my opinion figures 2, 3, 4, and 5 do not bring much value.
The figures present the landscape of the ASD research in health care from the content, historical and collaboration viewpoints. Figures were used in the thematic analysis and can give readers additional insight into the field
The structure of the paper is correct but the "Discussion and limitations" section is missing.
Discussion and results are presented together as is often done in review papers. The limitations and strength chapter is already present in the paper
Moreover, the author too extensively cites his own papers.
The cited own papers are strongly related to the paper content and might give additional explanations and more insight to the reader
The English used in the manuscript requires a lot of effort to correct as far as the style and punctuation are concerned.
The paper was proofread
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The article deals with the interesting and topical subject of agile methods in software development.
Unfortunately, the author has not addressed any of my comments.
The review search query is too general and remained the same.
Moreover, the scope of cited papers has been broadened from 92 to 101. Whereas, the author claims that "all publications not related to agile software development in health care excluded".
Since the search query has not been changed, where did the change in the scope of the literature come from?
This means that the selection of literature does not result from the search query used, but is only a subjective choice of the author. This undermines the results obtained.
The presentation side of the manuscript is its weak point. In my opinion figures 2, 3, 4, and 5 do not bring any value and are not readable.
Besides, the analysis of the results is too shallow.
Moreover, the author still extensively cites his own papers in the literature review.
The English used in the manuscript requires a lot of effort to correct as far as the style and punctuation are concerned.
The manuscript is not immature to be published in the Applied Sciences journal.
I recommend rejecting the manuscript.
Author Response
The review search query is too general and remained the same.
First I would like to resolve what I think is a misunderstanding of the analysis presented in the paper. The papers cited in the references are not the same as the corpus of the papers used for the bibliometric and content analysis. Of course, some papers in both sets overlap because they were used in the more detailed analysis of the themes encountered during the triangulation phase of the study.
Moreover, the scope of cited papers has been broadened from 92 to 101. Whereas, the author claims that "all publications not related to agile software development in health care excluded". Since the search query has not been changed, where did the change in the scope of the literature come from? This means that the selection of literature does not result from the search query used, but is only a subjective choice of the author. This undermines the results obtained
In terms of the above, the cited articles also include articles about ASD in general and articles explaining the methodology used and, of course, articles about the use of ASD in healthcare. The corpus of 231 papers obtained by Scopus and WoS search and subsequently content-checked, contains only articles related to the use of ASD in healthcare and only those papers were used for bibliometric and content analysis. The number of cited papers increased from 92 to 101 on the request of the other reviewer who proposed that the background should be amended to focus more on use of ASD in healthcare.
The presentation side of the manuscript is its weak point. In my opinion figures 2, 3, 4, and 5 do not bring any value and are not readable.
Figures 2 and 3 represent the basis for the content-based bibliometric analysis, and as explained in the Methodology represent the cluster/themes and associations/relations between cluster terms or author keywords. They should be read together with Table 1. Similar to Figures 2 and 3., Figure 4 was used in the historical content analysis and the figure shows how ASD use in healthcare research developed in the time dimension. Figure 5 was the basis for the collaboration analysis. According to the above, the author respectfully disagrees with the reviewer’s comment.
Moreover, the author still extensively cites his own papers in the literature review.
Some of the author’s references were removed.
The English used in the manuscript requires a lot of effort to correct as far as the style and punctuation are concerned.
The English was proofread and corrected
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
The author has not resolved any of the pointed problems in the manuscript.
Generally, the review is incomplete, too superficial, and imprecise.
There are 220 papers in the scope of the review (line 209). But, in the "References" section the number of papers is definitely lower. The author subjectively selected part of them to enclose in the manuscript. Besides, in each revision author changed the number of papers in the "References" section: 92, 101, and 95.
Still, the review search query is too general and remained the same. There is only one research question and a very overall one.
I want to emphasize that the review lacks a point of reference. The author has not referred the results to the principles of the agile manifesto (https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html).
The presentation of the results has not been changed and still is not acceptable.
In many places in the manuscript, the author writes "we" (lines: 11, 60, 160, 162, 339, 354, 357, 360). How many authors does that paper have?
Moreover, the author still extensively cites his own papers in the literature review.
The English used in the manuscript still requires a lot of effort to correct as far as the style and punctuation are concerned.
I recommend rejecting the manuscript.
