Improvement Strategies for Device Interoperability Middleware using Formal Reliability Analysis

Abstract

Ensuring the correctness of middleware that ensures interoperability of various medical devices is one of the biggest challenges in the e-health domain. Traditionally, these Device Interoperability Middleware (DIM) are analyzed using software testing. However, given the inherent incompleteness of testing and the randomness of the user behaviours, the analysis results are not guaranteed to be accurate. Some of these inaccuracies in analysis results could even put human life at risk. In order to overcome these limitations, we propose to use a probabilistic model checker PRISM for analyzing DIM. The proposed approach allows us to rigorously verify reliability properties of the given DIM and thus allows the designers to make appropriate measures to design more reliable systems. For illustration, we formally analyze a middleware that uses the HL7 FHIR and ontology-based description of the devices and a communication protocol to bridge the gap in heterogeneity for dealing with different vendors and incompatible data formats.