Salesforce CI/CD tools are a nonnegotiable aspect of a comprehensive DevOps strategy that directly addresses the unique needs of organizations in the healthcare industry.
Why It Matters: Healthcare companies have stringent data security needs to protect healthcare data, personal identifiable information (PII), and financial data. Failure to do this results in lost consumer trust and even fines and penalties from falling out of compliance with data security regulations.
- Cybercriminals target healthcare organizations because of the large amount of sensitive data contained within their systems.
- Frequent updates through a streamlined Salesforce DevOps pipeline are a crucial aspect of maintaining a secure IT platform.
- Automated DevOps tools reduce the potential for costly human errors while also creating audit trails that are incredibly beneficial in the event of a compliance audit.
Here are seven ways Salesforce CI/CD improves the DevOps pipelines of healthcare companies:
1. Simplified Compliance
Healthcare companies handle numerous types of sensitive data. The protection of this data is mandated by data security regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Salesforce CI/CD tools streamline deployments while maintaining audit trails, helping healthcare organizations meet HIPAA and other regulatory requirements.
Automated audit trails give healthcare companies the support they need to successfully navigate a compliance audit.
2. Improved Data Security
Data security requires a comprehensive approach to properly protect sensitive information. Healthcare companies face the strongest threats because of the nature of sensitivity in their IT systems.
Automated security checks built into CI/CD processes provide additional layers of protection for sensitive patient data throughout deployment processes.
Adequate protection requires a constant vigil against vulnerabilities. Manual tests can’t provide the consistency offered by automation.
3. Increased Time to Market
The data security landscape is constantly evolving. Healthcare companies need a flexible system that can quickly introduce security updates and new applications to address emerging threats as well as updated functionality to meet customer needs.
Automated CI/CD pipelines reduce manual errors and deployment delays, enabling quicker delivery of healthcare innovations and services.
Streamlined production cycles enable expedited releases that are secure and reliable.
4. Streamlined Collaboration
Large development teams are an asset for healthcare companies looking to further their Salesforce DevOps initiatives. However, multiple people working on the same project can introduce overwrites and errors that degrade the quality of the end product.
Salesforce CI/CD tools facilitate continuous integration of code from multiple developers, allowing teams to work simultaneously without conflicts.
The healthcare industry is fast-paced. Speeding development cycles with multiple developers can be made more reliable with proper tooling.
5. Reduced Downtime
Losing access to healthcare systems leads to service interruptions, which can be catastrophic for patients. And for the organization itself, outages can lead to compliance failures and loss of consumer confidence.
Automated testing and deployment minimize the risk of downtime during updates, ensuring critical healthcare applications stay online and available for patients and providers.
Salesforce CI/CD tools provide the necessary testing to confidently deploy updates and applications.
6. Accelerated Incident Response
Mistakes happen. There are simply too many potential sources of data loss, exposure, and corruption to completely guard against them. And in the case of a failure, you need to be able to quickly return to operations.
CI/CD pipelines enable faster rollback and fixes, reducing the impact on healthcare service delivery.
Errors, bugs, and system failures don’t have to be catastrophic. Salesforce CI/CD tools keep you flexible.
7. Ability to Manage Increased Data Volumes
Every organization aims to grow—healthcare organizations are no different. Growth requires the ability to properly manage increasing volumes of data. Protecting and maintaining proper structures requires the usage of a series of automated tools, including Salesforce CI/CD tools.
CI/CD automation allows healthcare organizations to easily scale their Salesforce environments as patient data and service demands grow.
Automated DevOps tools enable teams to expand their services without stretching their resources thin. When it comes to healthcare services, you can’t afford to compromise the quality of system performance.
Next Step…
Healthcare organizations work with their patients’ most sensitive information. Data security needs to be top of mind and comprehensive in its approach. A major part of this is to find and fix vulnerabilities that currently exist in your system.
Check out our blog, These 6 Vulnerabilities Exist in Your Salesforce Environment Right Now, to learn more about the challenges that could be facing your data.