Full-stack Developer Archives - Biz4solutions blog

The ever-increasing patient expectations, the emergence of innovative technologies, and tough competition amongst healthcare service providers have fuelled up the need for healthcare digitalization. And, the rapid adoption of smart medical equipment and software solutions by medical facilities has given rise to the trend of hiring healthcare app developers.

However, hiring developers for tailoring a suitable app/solution for your medical practice is not as easy as it sounds. While the right solution created by skilled developers can bring a lot to the table and boost your ROI; the wrong development methodology or a single developmental error can lead to huge disappointments, costly rework, and heavy losses. Hence, you need to choose your healthcare app development team with care.

This post provides you with all-inclusive guidance on hiring the right set of developers for your upcoming healthcare app development project.

Healthcare App Development Strategy: In-house Team or Freelancers or Outsourcing Agency?

In-house Team

If you plan to engage an in-house team of developers to build your healthcare software system, coordination will be outstanding. But you will face issues like high infrastructure & administrative costs, a limited talent pool, and loads of time and effort on team management.

Freelancers

Hiring freelancers may be the cheapest and most convenient option as it rules out any hiring hassles. Nevertheless, freelance developers are not so reliable and are likely to back out of the project mid-way, leaving you in deep waters.

Outsourcing Agency

Outsourcing software developers or development companies is the most popular and profitable approach as it comes with countless benefits. This approach allows you to choose from a wide range of talented healthcare app developers from across the globe, flexible hiring models like the pay-as-you-go option, more experienced teams, end-to-end product development cycles, and many more. Moreover, the Healthcare provider can entrust the IT development responsibility to partner firms and focus on their core industrial operations. Here, you get an entire development team or independent developers depending on your requirement.

This approach too has minor downsides like communication woes, time differences, and language barriers. But these issues can be easily avoided if you pick an experienced healthcare app development company with a good track record, maintain transparent communication throughout the development process, and enter into contractual agreements beforehand.

Hiring Healthcare App developers: Generic Factors to Consider

Background Research

Check the credentials, previous work history, and client feedback of the outsourcing vendor agency or healthcare app developers you have shortlisted. This can be done by visiting the software company’s website and checking their offerings, case studies, client reviews, etc.

Renowned online business listing platforms like Clutch, GoodFirms, etc. can also provide you with important information about the expertise of a healthcare app development vendor agency. These platforms display the profiles of numerous software companies mentioning their niche, client testimonials, awards and recognitions, project references, etc. Online platforms like Upwork provide information on thousands of skilled freelance developers and agencies around the globe.

Technical Expertise Validation

Extensive experience, innovative ability, talent, expertise, and the right skills as per your requirements, are the necessary prerequisites to look for in healthcare developers. You can prepare a questionnaire for validating their technical skills.

Agreement on SDLC and Signing of NDA

If you are hiring outsourced assistance, clarification on the SDLC and signing an NDA is essential during the project discussion stage.

You need to clarify which SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) model will be used, the experience & expertise of developers who will be allocated to your project, and the tentative turnaround time for each stage of the SLDC. Usually, an agile development methodology is preferred over other models as it has turned out to be the most productive strategy around the world so far.

Signing service level agreements like an NDA (non-disclosure agreement), with the healthcare app development company or developers to whom you are outsourcing the project, is mandatory as per the HIPAA guidelines. An NDA is also crucial as this contract seals and legalizes the partnership agreement. You must also discuss and agree upon certain factors like payment timelines, the token amount, and payment terms and conditions prior to the commencement of the project.

Must-have Skillsets to promote Healthcare Interoperability

Semantic vocabularies

Semantic vocabularies are necessary to maintain the syntactic standards needed for seamlessly interpreting clinical data, and so, healthcare app developers must have some prior experience in working with the commonly used semantic vocabularies including LONIC, ICD9/10, SNOMED-CT, and RxNorm.

Healthcare Integrations

Interoperability between various apps, systems, and devices is a crucial prerequisite to regulating clinical workflow in the healthcare environment. And, interoperability can be successfully achieved by integrating frameworks in the right manner. Hence, healthcare app developers must be well versed in the frequently used medical frameworks such as Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) and HITSP (Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel).

Developers must also possess knowledge of the popular interoperability standards adopted in the realm of Healthcare technology. The most popular interoperability standard is the level- 7 2. X; other notable ones include HL7 v3CDA, ANSIX12n5010, DICOM, and NCPDP SCRIPT.

Necessary Technical Knowledge and Skills

Third-party Integrations

Large-scale healthcare services often need to partner with third-party providers and utilize their solution platform to efficiently manage their entire workflow. The most commonly used third-party integrations include in-app chat, payment APIs, in-app calling, etc. If these integrations are not executed properly during mobile app development, the app’s UX gets adversely affected. As such, the healthcare app developers whom you pick for tailoring an app or solution must be thorough with third-party integration standards like SOAP, HL7 FHIR, and REST framework.

API Development Capabilities

Most healthcare app projects involve API development. API components need to be added for authenticating a device to gain access to the central patients’ repository.

So, the healthcare app developers must possess sound knowledge of commonly used SQL databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc., and NoSQL databases such as Apache Cassandra, MongoDB, etc. Developers must have expertise in developing the RESTful API, REST (Representational State Transfer) being the standard development practice. The development team should be able to build effective API endpoints and create highly workable rules for API requests and API responses. Programmers also need to know the standard practices used for ensuring API security like encryption, the usage of safe API gateways, etc.

Cutting-edge Technologies

Healthcare app developers must have the necessary expertise in working with modern technologies. The most relevant technologies employed for building a healthcare app are IoT, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence.

IoT automates the workflow of a healthcare facility, enables remote health tracking, improves interoperability, and facilitates medical data exchange. It also drives the functioning of smart devices like wearables that are an integral part of telehealth apps and remote patient monitoring.

AI has entered the healthcare industry as machine learning algorithms are increasingly being used for ushering in advanced automation and improving the efficiency and accuracy of healthcare functioning. Blockchain technology ensures security while health record sharing helps research scholars in genetic coding, and improves the efficiency of medicine supply management.

Essential Soft Skills for Healthcare App developers

Revenue Cycle Workflow

Healthcare app developers have to provide a clear picture to their clients on the working of the revenue cycle workflow. So, developers must have extensive knowledge about how the elements in a healthcare organization’s revenue cycle workflow function. These elements include payment models, billing schedules, denials workflows, etc.

Capability to guide the Client in Planning Productive Strategies

The development team is expected to guide the client through the planning process. For this reason, the professionals should possess sound interpersonal skills like being able to comprehend dependencies, interoperability requirements, etc., and strong communication skills to convey those requirements effectively.

Recommendation on implementing effective app monetization strategies is of utmost importance as this will add value to your investment. Developers should be able to suggest the most reliable and productive monetizing strategies for optimum benefits.

Awareness of Healthcare App Security Standards and Regulatory Compliances

The privacy and security of data are of utmost importance as the healthcare industry processes sensitive patient data and medical information. Therefore, security measures need to be adopted during the software development process itself. So, the developers must be aware of secure coding practices and the latest data encryption tools like next-generation firewalls, antivirus, etc. The other standard practices that developers need to know are implementing multi-factor authentication along with password protection, adopting measures to eliminate security threats like broken authentication, injection, etc., and incorporating “Compliance-as-Code” for conducting security and compliance testing in the CD/CI pipeline.

Furthermore, healthcare apps and solutions need to comply with several standard regulations like HIPAA, etc. mandated by the US government and other regulatory authorities. Developers must be well versed in these standard regulations so that they are able to effectively implement these during app building.

Bottomline:

The aforesaid practices are winning strategies for hiring Healthcare app developers. You need to team up with the right software development firm that will deliver your project timely without compromising on the product quality, identify issues instantly, and resolve bugs at once. Also, look for developers who have the necessary knowledge, understanding, technical expertise, and experience as per your project needs.

So, it is advisable to pick an IT agency that will take care of the entire healthcare app product lifecycle starting from app ideation to maintenance post-deployment.

Full-stack developer, frontend developer, and backend developer are some of the words common for any individual involved in software development. However, the case is not same for job seekers and employers. Job seekers end up being confused about the stream they should take up. They keep wondering if they can apply for full stack developer position. Similarly, the employers are in confusion about whom to hire for software and web application development. There is a lot of hue and cry around full stack developers. With this blog, we aim to provide more insight into full stack developers, and educate everyone about it.

What is Front-End and Back-End Development?

Every web application can be broadly differentiated into two parts: front-end and back-end. The front-end is the face of the software that interacts with the user. It includes UX and GUI. The front-end developers mostly work on HTML, Javascript, and CSS3. Front-end developers work on improving the user experience.

The back end includes the database and server. Back-end developers are responsible for the performance of the application. They create the backend using multiple languages like Python, PHP, .Net, Ruby, etc. The backend server act as the base for the front-end development. The addition of new features and new users is managed by the backend developers.

Who is a Full-Stack Developer?

While many developers specialize in front-end or backend, there are developers who have knowledge and experience in working on both front end & backend stack. They have extensive knowledge about creating a seamless overlap between the front-end and back-end development. A full-stack developer will have a higher skill set and proficiency in development stacks which is the reason behind their high demand in the market.

Responsibilities of a Full-Stack Developer

Front-end development using CSS, HTML, and Javascript frameworks. They must deliver a highly interactive application that offers a great user experience.
Backend development to create a robust architecture capable of interacting with the servers and fetching data.
Database and server development, resilient to function with more functionalities and users
Establishing cross-platform compatibility to ensure that the application runs smoothly on every compatible device and operating system
API development for seamless and robust client-server interaction
Implementing all the client requirements for front-end and backend

Why Become A Full-Stack Developer?

As a software developer, one gets multiple streams to grow into. We can choose to be front-end and backend developers. The industry has opportunities for both. However, having expertise in both domains can be more advantageous in terms of growth and remuneration. Being experienced in both the domains can fetch you fatter paychecks since you will be solely responsible for the performance and success of the web application. The second advantage is in terms of opportunities as you will have the chance to work as a front-end developer, back-end developer, and full stack developer. The third advantage is learning. With time, the full stack developers acquire expertise more than any front-end or backend developer of a similar experience. This raises the market value of full-stack developers.

How to Become a Full-Stack Developer?

Acquiring the right skill is the primary requirement for becoming any type of software developer. As a pre-requisite, you should outline the necessary technical skills for any full-stack developer. To start with, here are a few skills that must be on your resume ahead of a job search as a full-stack developer.

Front-end development: HTML, CSS, and Javascript
Backend development: Python, PHP, and Ruby
API development: REST and SOAP
Database creation: JSON, NoSQL, and SQL
Knowledge about version control systems such as SVN and Git, and different servers
Graphic design and other skills for visual communication

These are some of the basic skills that one can learn to get hired as a full-stack developer. You can pursue part-time and full-time courses to learn these skills. Moreover, there are many online courses designed for the user to learn the skills on their own. The interesting aspect of software development is that the organizations are keen to hire developers based on their skills rather than their certificates. Anyone can start learning and practicing these languages to become a full-stack developer.

Why Should an Organization Hire a Full-Stack Developer?

A full-stack developer is equipped with every skill set that one can find with a front-end developer or backend developer. Two different employees for web application development would consume twice for each resource like workstation, internet, air conditioners, conveyance, etc. The companies can save expenditure on all of these with a single employee for application development. Moreover, a full stack developer may develop a better backend architecture and front-end design since they will have visibility about both aspects. In addition to this, a full stack developer will have better expertise in handling front-end and backend overlap since everything would be developed by them. Hiring a full-stack developer is a better deal in every way.

How to Hire the Best Full-Stack Developer?

Every full-stack developer may have a similar skill set with a different level of experience. We generally give an upper hand to more experience. However, full-stack development is about expertise, and developers with lower experience can have higher expertise. Given below are the steps a company can follow to hire the best full-stack developers:

Connect with the developers using every channel

Today job portals are counted as just one way of hiring the right candidate. Besides the job portals, the organizations can reach out to the developers on different business-related social media platforms such as Linked in, and Freelancer.com. You can explore your social media groups on every platform to find the developers with the desired experience.

Conduct face-to-face technical interview

A technical interview can act as the passing stage for any developer. The organizations should let the architects and tech leads question the potential candidate about their knowledge and experience. They can be asked questions such as difficulties faced during development, the domain of expertise, and the development approach they would adopt for your project. The speed of development is the important query that can be made.

Hire software development companies

Many organizations choose to hire external companies for software development as they provide a complete package of application development that includes testing and support. The organizations can connect with different companies with their requirement and budget. The process gets easier in this case as a software development company brings in trust and expertise.

Conclusion

Being a full-stack developer is about being an expert in every aspect of application development. These developers are also good designers who help the companies in providing a higher user experience that directly influences the revenue. Hiring a software development company instead of a developer is also a great idea. You can connect with us for all your software development needs. We are one of the esteemed outsourcing software development companies with years of expertise in different domain. Our front-end and full-stack developers will ensure that you get the most robust and scalable application. Contact us today to build a mobile/web application that lets you stand distinguished in the industry.

Full-stack Developer Category

All-inclusive Guide on Hiring Healthcare App Developers!