Today, healthcare is synonymous with data. From electronic health records to body telemetry data, the volume and variety of healthcare information is ever increasing. Whether helping to identify an influenza outbreak or simply keeping track of personal fitness goals, big data is transforming how the healthcare space functions.
Harnessing the scale and amount of available information can be complicated. With rigorous compliance requirements and the constant threat of data breaches, it’s challenging to design, develop, and deploy the applications that such data makes possible.
That’s where DevOps comes in. While traditional approaches to rolling out products drew a line between development and operations, DevOps harnesses automation to reimagine them as a singular process. The result is a more agile, scalable, and reliable approach that drastically reduces timelines and prioritizes innovation.
Healthcare Before DevOps
The traditional software development lifecycle (SDLC) approach to product development was impractical and inflexible. In this waterfall approach, development and operations teams worked independently to plan, test, and deploy products – often with little sense of what the other team was doing and no contingency plans.
Additionally, the extensive hardware typically involved in SDLC posed its own problems, since the rigidity of physical servers required specialized training and added to the risk of error. In the all too common case of a botched release, entire services could go down as teams worked to resolve issues in the hardware and in the code, slowing delivery and frustrating users.
Healthcare After DevOps
With the move to DevOps, the wall between the development and operations teams is more like a bridge. By automating processes that were prone to human error and dispersed across teams, DevOps improves reliability while eliminating the need for rigid hardware and inflexible timelines.
DevOps not only eliminates the arbitrary distinction between development and operations, it also blurs the line between infrastructure and code. Strategizing around the idea of infrastructure as code (IaC) means that DevOps teams can now iterate and release products quickly and confidently, with fewer negative consequences when something goes wrong.
The Benefits Of DevOps: Automation Leads To Agility
DevOps’s revolutionary approach results in a sweeping range of benefits, from fewer interruptions to more intelligent releases.
Faster Timelines
Of all the numerous advantages of automation, time saved is among the most important. From coding to testing to release, steps that might have previously taken weeks can now be accomplished in a matter of hours – if not instantly.
Freeing DevOps personnel from the hassles of traditional product development reduces the risk of human error and enables teams to prioritize growth. With more time to focus on products rather than process, teams can emphasize value-adding activities, instead of diverting resources to maintain impractical timelines.
More Sophisticated Releases
Automation not only streamlines the early stages of development, it also contributes significantly to testing and release. Rather than relying on a monolithic release, DevOps teams can first introduce a product to a subset of users, then tweak and update before initiating a wider rollout.
Automation also creates the possibility of strategies such as A/B testing. Being able to get real-time feedback simply and efficiently can drastically reduce the time needed to improve a product or implement an update. It also simplifies the process of rolling back a release by limiting the “blast radius” of potential errors.
Reduced Physical Infrastructure
Removing the distinction between infrastructure and code eliminates hardware headaches. Previously, companies would lose time and resources to server management, whether that meant waiting weeks for a needed product to arrive or dealing with a problem in a physical data center.
The changes also meant considerable reductions to IT expenses. Since 57% of healthcare CEOs say reducing operating costs is a major concern, adopting a DevOps strategy can offer immediate logistical and financial advantages.
Improved Customer Focus
Moving to automated cloud-based processes not only creates more time for innovation, it creates more time for customers. Rather than hunting down a hardware issue or coordinating communication across teams, developers can now listen to customers’ needs and respond with the strongest possible products.
This increased attention translates to an increased rate of growth. Enabling more intelligent testing and more rapid troubleshooting, the agility of DevOps renders situations that previously held serious consequences into easily fixable blips in the development timeline.
Heightened Security
Given that the average medical record sells for ten times more than credit card information, it’s not surprising that healthcare is the industry most targeted by hackers. Such attacks can be devastating for companies and their clients alike.
A DevOps approach to security, known as DevSecOps, automates security practices such as password strength, key rotation, and encryption throughout the SDLC. It also eliminates the possibility of human error. Reducing the size of a company’s security footprint by automating testing and deployment helps keep your timelines on track and your customers’ data secure.
More Efficient Compliance
Because of those security threats, healthcare is a highly regulated industry, with breaches coming with costly fines. Thanks to DevOps, navigating HIPAA regulations and the HITRUST framework becomes far more manageable.
For instance, a DevOps approach makes it possible to create automated solutions to issues such as password generation. The organization can show not only that they’ve created compliant passwords, but that it’s impossible to create a noncompliant password within their code.
Barriers to Adopting DevOps
Convincing development and operations teams to adopt a DevOps model can be a challenge. When creating a DevOps culture, healthcare organizations should be aware of two objections they may face.
Cost Before Agility
A typical DevOps journey begins and ends with the bottom line. Those who resist the change do so because of the cost of the transition, but the financial benefits of a DevOps model far outweigh the costs.
While eliminating the demands on your IT team is important, the time and resources saved go far beyond hardware. Once an organization realizes it could roll out ten products in the amount of time that they could previously release one, the agility that DevOps offers becomes an end goal in itself.
Resistance To Change
Conventional development and operations teams are often hesitant to learn new processes, especially if it means a major functional restructuring. Equally, organizations that have only ever used physical servers might find a migration to the cloud daunting.
With so many healthcare organizations adopting a DevOps approach, however, eliminating distinctions like development/operations and infrastructure/code is rapidly becoming the only option. Teams can only handle so many botched releases or prolonged timelines before they’ll wonder why their competitors are all outpacing them.
DevOps And The Future Of Healthcare
With DevOps promising unparalleled agility, scalability, and reliability for providers and technology companies alike, the healthcare industry will continue to transform at ever greater speed. Healthcare organizations that adapt will enjoy immediate advantages, while those still using the traditional SDLC approach will be eclipsed by more market-responsive competitors.
To learn how Cloudticity can help your company achieve DevOps automation, please schedule a consultation.
