Overcoming the Unique Challenges of DevOps in Healthcare

Like all industries, healthcare stands to benefit from DevOps, a modern approach to software delivery. But unlike other industries, organizations in the healthcare space face some special challenges when adopting DevOps.

That's why a DevOps strategy for healthcare requires more than a typical approach to implementing DevOps tools and processes, like CI/CD. Read on for a look at the unique challenges that apply to DevOps in healthcare, along with strategies for overcoming them.

The Benefits of DevOps for Healthcare

DevOps is an approach to software delivery that emphasizes practices such as continuous software improvements and efficient communication between the various stakeholders in the software development process. The overall goal of DevOps is to help organizations implement new applications or features quickly and efficiently.

That's valuable in almost any context, and healthcare is no exception. Healthcare providers rely on a broad range of applications — such as health record software, patient monitoring apps, and telemedicine tools, to name just a few. The more quickly and efficiently healthcare organizations can build and update these apps, the more effective they are at providing great care.

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The Challenges of DevOps in Healthcare

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But when it comes to applying DevOps practices to healthcare, the going is not always easy. The unique requirements of the healthcare industry pose several special challenges related to DevOps adoption.

Legacy healthcare software

Some healthcare organizations, like hospitals, have been in operation for decades, if not centuries. In that time, they've come to rely in many cases on complex legacy healthcare software platforms that were designed long before anyone was thinking about DevOps. As a result, the apps that healthcare organizations need to support are often monolithic, on-prem, and challenging to test and update — all of which can make it hard to apply DevOps practices to the software.

To be sure, there are ways of extending DevOps techniques and software solutions into the realm of legacy apps. For instance, legacy apps can be containerized, making them easier to manage as part of a DevOps software delivery pipeline. But solutions like these require extra planning and effort compared with applying DevOps to a modern app.

Compliance and security requirements

DevOps in healthcare can also be challenging because healthcare organizations are subject to strict compliance and security requirements, such as those defined by HIPAA (which applies to providers that operate in the U.S.).

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To be sure, DevOps can work just fine when dealing with software that must meet rigorous compliance and security mandates. But these requirements may slow down the pace of innovation. DevOps teams may need to run extra tests before deploying a new application release, for example, to maximize security.

Specialized hardware

Much of the software that healthcare organizations use runs on traditional servers and PCs. But some operates on specialized types of devices, such as internet of things (IoT) medical equipment.

Here again, it's not impossible to adopt DevOps when designing software that will run on specialized hardware. But it tends to be more challenging because most DevOps development, testing, and deployment tools are not designed for delivering software that will run on heart monitors or connected inhalers, to name just a couple examples of the types of specialized devices that DevOps teams may need to support in the healthcare industry.

How to Make DevOps Work in Healthcare

Healthcare organizations aspiring to adopt DevOps can overcome the challenges described above. But doing so requires extra planning and effort. In particular, DevOps teams working in healthcare may need to:

Related:5 Best Practices for Achieving Healthcare Cloud Compliance

Strategies like these help ensure that DevOps can bring the same value to the healthcare space that it offers in other industries, whose technology and compliance requirements are simpler.