Project Overview
Valued at $3.65 trillion, the US healthcare industry is larger than many national economies.
Disrupting this giant with new technology is not an easy task, even for the most cutting edge,
forward-thinking companies.
Yet CareCloud is attempting to do so.
They believe healthcare deserves tools that are as modern, well-designed, and easy-to-use as the ones encountered elsewhere in our daily lives.
A few years ago, we joined CareCloud’s efforts when we became their technology partner. We have supported the development of their products which include, among others, cloud-based practice management, electronic health records, and medical billing software and services.
Here we look at how our relationship has evolved since the beginning and the key strengths we bring:
Problem
A shortage of Development Talent
Challenge
Restoring Trust in Outsourcing
Solution
Highly Motivated Blended Project Teams
Problem
A shortage of development talent.
Like many companies in the US, CareCloud was resource-constrained in terms of senior developers, a scarce resource which often prevents businesses from moving faster.
The shortage was disproportionately large in terms of native mobile devs, which CareCloud needed for Breeze and Go, two of their main projects.
CareCloud Go is a revolutionary platform that unifies all clinical, financial, administrative and patient experience data in one seamless system.
According to CareCloud, the recruitment process and ramp-up period for new candidates had become a pain point. It required a lengthy, time-involved process to evaluate and decide between various applicants in addition to the legal and financial arrangements necessary to onboard a new hire. The entire process, in some cases, could require up to 4 months to fill one position.
At the time CareCloud reached out to us, recruiting and scaling their in-house development teams had become costly and time-consuming.
Challenge
Restoring trust in outsourcing.
CareCloud previously had a negative experience with a former software partner, but they decided to give offshoring another chance when a trusted colleague recommended Santex. We knew it would prove to be challenging, but we do not shy away from any opportunities to improve and gladly accepted the road ahead. From that very moment, the ability to find the right solution was in our hands.
Our human capital department worked around the clock to assemble a team of senior software developers, mobile application developers, business analysts and quality assurance engineers with relevant experience in the life science industry.
Solution
Highly motivated blended project teams.
Initially our work with CareCloud began around mobile development, and from there continued to grow consistently in terms of volume and diversity of tasks. Time and time again we were trusted with new projects thanks to our exceptional retention rates, our capacity for working well together and our aptitude for solving complex issues quickly.
On a technical level, our journey with CareCloud can be highlighted in three areas.
Coding Standards
& Best Practices Best Practices
During the first phase, we elaborated a refactoring plan to boost the application’s performance. We started by cleaning up the existing code to keep it concise and succinct to ensure readability. Then we decided to implement peer reviews whenever a team member opened a pull request for new code and branching model management for prioritizing features.
We also integrated code analysis tools such as Codeclimate and used a continuous integration service (Travis). Finally, we systematized the testing of new features by adding continuous delivery with HockeyApp (now App Center) and generating UI automation tests that allowed us to have automatic regression testing for each new feature.
Agile Development
Processes
The second phase involved converting teams to agile methodologies and supporting CareCloud with local Scrum Masters. They carried out an agile assessment and identified three areas for improvement:
- Developing cross-functional teams in order to remove dependencies and allow each group to work at their own pace, in order to deliver end-to-end features.
- Defining working agreements between teams to help establish a list of metrics so that management could have clear insights into the development efforts.
- Supporting teams with specific agile training to help incorporate an agile mindset grounded in delivering value to end-users.
High-performing
DevOps Methodology
Employees in high-performing DevOps organizations spend less time on un planned work and rework. That is why this phase of our relationship has revolved around the implementation of DevOps: We have optimized infrastructure, stabilized developing environments and documented processes in order to facilitate scalability.
The success of the Santex-CareCloud relationship is evidence that software outsourcing can have tremendous benefits when the remotely distributed teams are highly motivated, technically savvy, and capable of becoming an integral part of the client’s team.