The requirement matrix
Write requirements in a form that can be tested. Terms such as high quality, diverse or fully labeled are not acceptance criteria until they are connected to measurable definitions.
- Clinical target: anatomy, pathology, disease stage and model task
- Imaging: modality, sequences, contrast, source and derived formats
- Acquisition: vendor, model, field strength, protocol and reconstruction
- Cohort: case count, controls, prevalence, demographics and geography
- Ground truth: source, reviewer, annotation format and adjudication
- Quality: completeness, artefacts, exclusions and acceptance thresholds
- Commercial: use, pilot, final volume, timeline and exclusivity
Separate required from preferred
A specification with too many mandatory fields may produce no feasible cohort. Mark each constraint as required, preferred or informational. This lets hospitals return usable alternatives without silently weakening the core model need.
Ask for aggregate inventory first
Before contracts and privacy scope are complete, the hospital can usually provide counts and distributions rather than patient-level records. The inventory report identifies whether a pilot is worth pursuing and what approvals or annotation work remain.
Questions, answered directly.
Should buyers ask for every available field?+
No. Data minimization and task fit are better than collecting fields without a defined purpose.
When should price be discussed?+
After enough inventory and annotation information is known to estimate real work and licensing scope.
What should be tested in a pilot?+
The same technical, clinical, privacy and commercial acceptance criteria intended for the final delivery.