How to Hire Remote Software Developers in Healthcare: What Executives Need to Know

Remote work in healthcare has become the norm, ranking fifth among industries with growing remote workers. And this is especially true when it comes to software engineers in the healthcare industry.

The reason is quite simple: the number of healthcare tech companies that develop medical software, applications, and data analytics is on the rise, and most of them rely heavily on engineers with remote work preferences.

As a result, numerous healthcare companies now offer work-from-home. However, hiring and managing top-tier engineers remotely can be a bit challenging. So, if you’re a healthcare executive looking to hire remote software developers, you’re in the right spot.

This article will delve into all you need to know about hiring and managing remote software developers in this dynamic sector, including:

• Essential benefits of remote work in healthcare;
• Potential challenges of hiring remote software developers in healthcare; and 
• Key best practices for hiring and managing remote software development teams.

But first, let’s look at how the healthcare industry has changed since remote work became so popular.

How the Healthcare Industry Has Changed Since Remote Work: A Quick Recap

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the advent of the new normal, healthcare companies categorized their workers as essential and non-essential. 

Non-essential workers shifted to remote work, realizing they could effectively perform their tasks from the comfort of their homes.

Nevertheless, as life gradually returned to normal, many healthcare companies mandated their employees to return to the office. But this transition was not without consequences. A wide range of healthcare tech workers quit their jobs in search of remote work options.

Numbers don’t lie.

According to a 2023 study, the resignation rate among workers reached a record high of 2.5% in March 2021, peaking at 3.0% in November 2021.

Considering that 68% of Americans would prefer to be fully remote and 63% of employees prioritize remote work over salary, this situation has forced healthcare organizations to reconsider their talent retention and recruitment strategies.

Today, remote work is non-negotiable for many healthcare industry positions. To manage technical healthcare workforce expectations, organizations should build effective IT remote teams.

The Benefits of Remote Work in Healthcare 

Working with a remote technical team in the healthcare industry doesn’t have to be a pain. Effectively hiring and managing remote talent offers a wide range of advantages for the healthcare sector.

It can help healthcare organizations to:

• Access a large, high-quality talent pool;
• Incur lower business costs;
• Enhance efficiency & boost retention;
• Find engineers with English proficiency and commitment; and
• Take advantage of top-tier talent at a fraction of the cost.

Let’s take a closer look.

Accessing to a Large, High-Quality Talent Pool

Remote work has shattered geographical barriers, giving healthcare organizations access to a larger pool of high-quality software engineers with experience in the healthcare industry. Whether an organization needs Ruby on Rails or .NET developers, they are likely to find top talent working remotely rather than onsite.

In other words, managing a remote-first team allows organizations to expand their recruitment network and access a larger talent pool. This is particularly important for organizations needing to hire talent with outstanding skills that are also quite niche..

By accessing a large talent pool, healthcare companies can alleviate the shortage of high-quality talent and foster a more diverse team of employees. This can ultimately expand the knowledge and capacity for innovation within the company, bringing in new perspectives and experiences.

Incurring Lower Business Costs

Especially if you’re a company with 200 to 600 employees, operating a centralized workforce can lead to significant overspending.

If 100% of your technical workforce works remotely, you can reduce expenses related to:

• Office rent;
• Equipment costs; and
• Certain employee travel expenses.

If you only have a portion of your staff onsite, you can cut costs by operating out of smaller units.

For example, large firms like Cisco have stated that thanks to remote work, they can save $227 million per year.

Enhancing Efficiency & Boosting Retention

Remote workers in several areas, including healthcare, have been shown to maintain and sometimes even exceed traditional in-office productivity.

A PGI study found that 80% of remote workers are likely to have an increase in morale.

It’s not a secret that healthcare software developers are more satisfied with their jobs, more productive, and more loyal when they work remotely. 

In fact, Buffer’s survey revealed that:

• 22% of remote workers say the most relevant benefit of remote work is time flexibility.
• For 19%, that flexibility manifests itself in the ability to choose where they live.
• And for 13%, it’s the flexibility to choose their work location, which is their primary motivator.

If managed properly, there is evidence that hiring remote software developers can improve employee retention rates.

Finding Engineers with English Proficiency & Commitment

Healthcare organizations can access remote talent globally, not just locally. However, depending on your tech talent’s country of origin, you must address factors like English proficiency, cultural fit, and time zone compatibility.

Latin America is a popular hub for distributed teams, unlike Asia or Europe, with larger time gaps and less culturally aligned engineering talent. Combined with English proficiency and aligned time zones, this region boasts a wide range of skilled software engineers.

For instance, Brazilian software developers share a minimal time difference with the U.S., fostering effective communication and teamwork. They are equipped with a solid academic foundation and native English proficiency. Mexicans, Argentinians, and other region-based developers enjoy similar advantages.

Getting Top-Tier Talent at a Fraction of the Cost

The ability to source top-tier talent at an affordable cost is just as crucial as those developers having the right skills. By assembling a remote team of tech experts, you can enjoy the benefits of high-quality healthcare developers at a fraction of the local rate.

Glassdoor data reveals that hiring a senior software developer in the U.S. costs $186K to $286K/year. Meanwhile, the Latin American cost of hiring a senior software developer is $90K to $102K/year.

Setting up a remote team not only simplifies your global talent acquisition, improves retention, and reduces operational expenses,but it also helps you stay within budget.

The Challenges of Remote Work in Healthcare

While the switch to remote work can be transformative in healthcare, it’s not without its drawbacks. 

The following are some challenges of remote work in healthcare.

Communication & Collaboration Challenges

When integrating remote teams across cultures, the absence of face-to-face meetings with immediate feedback and updates can pose challenges for software developers.

Luckily, there’s a simple solution to effectively overcome this issue: Creating a transparent remote communication strategy.

A dedicated Talent Experience Manager™can assist you in developing such a program to streamline communication and collaboration with your software development team.

This approach may include:

• Regular team meetings;
• Feedback protocol for project updates; and
• Active listening sessions.

Through a robust remote communication strategy, you can foster collaborative and transparent work dynamics. This strategy is also key to understanding your engineers’ personal and career-related needs.

Moreover, you can organize in-person meetings to motivate and create a sense of community among engineers.

Let me give an example. At BEON.tech, we organize the Ambassadors’ Week, an event where all our engineers from Latin America converge at our Buenos Aires headquarters. This special occasion strengthens our team, fosters cultural exchange, and allows for engagement in activities beyond work, creating stronger bonds.

Overall, planning a communication strategy aligned with remote work is the way to keep engineers engaged, prevent misunderstandings, and improve their performance.

Security & Privacy Concerns

Whether they want to integrate Latin American remote software developers or those from other regions, organizations often face a set of security risks, especially when it comes to building software development remote teams.

These risks may include:

• Data breaches;
• External attacks;
• Information silos; 
• Data loss or damage; 
• Non-compliance fines;
• Business costs; and
• Damage to the company reputation.

The main solution is to adhere to sector-specific laws. For example in the U.S, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) governs medical information.

By managing robust protocols to avoid security-related dangers, remote-first organizations can maintain data integrity and compliance.

Issues with Technology 

It’s evident that remote work demands the seamless operation of various technologies. Yet, at times, technology  may play tricks on you. Imagine the frustration when the internet suddenly drops, causing unexpected setbacks. 

The solution? Consider this issue when planning your remote work strategy.

Possible alternatives to overcome this issue include:

• Covering software engineers’ connection costs; or
• Providing equipment budget or coverage (i.e:  computers, keyboards, computer mouse, etc.).

How to Hire & Manage Remote Software Developers in Healthcare

At this point, you’re probably wondering: Is remote work an option for building a robust engineering team? 

In our opinion, if you want to streamline your software development hiring process, you should consider remote work to hire top-tier engineers ready to add value quickly and cost-effectively without compromising quality.

By and large, the benefits of hiring remote software developers for healthcare companies outweigh the drawbacks. If you’re convinced of those benefits, it’s time to start building your technical remote team.

Without further ado, here are essential best practices for hiring and managing software developers in the healthcare industry.

Establish Clear Guidelines & Expectations

To begin, you should establish clear guidelines aligned with your business goals. This includes:

• Assessing your project’s scale;
• Determining your technical team size; and
• Selecting specialists with relevant skills and knowledge, favorable time zone, and English proficiency.

When you outline your requirements in advance, you can streamline your workflow without hiring extra staff or investing in employees with insufficient soft and hard skills.

Perform a Cost Analysis 

Once you know how many engineers you need and their respective technologies, you should perform a cost analysis. Ideally, you should include:

• Recruitment: HR salaries, job boards, social media ads, and managerial time spent on recruitment, interviewing, and training.
• HR software: ATS, onboarding apps, and people management platforms, among others.
• Compensation: Wages, benefits, bonuses, perks, payroll taxes, as well as knowledge transfer from current employees to new hires.
• Onboarding: Structured training, welcome kits, setup, and ongoing costs.
• Paperwork: Interview scheduling, background checks, and legal contracts, among others.

Analyzing your cost structures will enable you to determine if your operating costs, salaries, and benefits are in line with your hiring budget or if anything needs to be adjusted.

Update your Careers Page 

Once you have a solid idea of your hiring requirements and costs, it’s time to update your careers page. In addition to posting the requirements for remote positions you’re seeking to fill, you should explain your company’s culture and values as well as its remote-first philosophy.

Moreover, your careers page should include information such as:

• An overview of your healthcare company’s history;
• Videos and photos of employees;
• Perks and benefits (especially those applicable to remote team members); and
• A disclaimer stating the position is 100% remote.

When done right, your company’s careers page can streamline the hiring process, reduce hiring costs, and enhance its employer brand.

Develop a Solid Communication Strategy

Communication among colleagues is essential in distributed teams. Therefore, when hiring software developers for remote positions, it’s imperative to establish a robust communication strategy so that team members stay connected and their managers can measure their performance.

This strategy may include:

• Regular meetings for updates and next steps;
• Connecting with developers in person to ensure your employees are satisfied with the project; and
• Face-to-face meetings (virtual and in-person) to build a strong relationship and understand your employees’ needs.

Additionally, choosing the right tools and platforms for remote teams that are secure and efficient is key to ensuring seamless operations. Online collaboration tools like Miro and Slack, documentation tools like Notion, and task assignment apps like Asana and Trello enable remote teams to work more smoothly.

Review the Compliance Implications of Remote Work

As mentioned above, security is a crucial factor never to overlook when building a remote development team for your healthcare company.

Make sure you know the regulations you have to follow (such as HIPAA compliance) and inform your remote software development team as well.

To do that, you can:

• Share documents explaining the importance of sensitive information security in every project. Additionally, explain how to implement measures to prevent data breaches.
• Conduct interactive and insightful training webinars to raise awareness of robust security measures and ensure a comprehensive understanding of compliance requirements.
• Create a dedicated Slack channel to share relevant information, updates, and friendly reminders.
• Facilitate valuable insights through engaging books, magazines, publications, videos, and other media.

Implementing best practices for HIPAA compliance within your remote team of software engineers from the outset is key to enhancing workflows and preventing security breaches.

Keep Talent Experience in Mind

In addition to tracking remote engineers’ performance and well-being through effective communication, it is essential to make them feel like they are part of something bigger in order to improve their experience. Collaborating closely with an internal culture and communications team is an excellent way to achieve this. They can develop and implement programs to retain talent.

Some of these might include:

• Getting remote workers involved in innovative projects;
• Budgeting for training;
• Opportunities to deliver tech webinars for extra compensation;
• Healthcare insurance;
• Parental leave;
• Remote team-building activities (i.e., Slack challenges, gaming leagues, or specific trivia sessions);
• Therapy sessions;
• English lessons;
• The possibility of conducting tech interviews and mentoring other developers;
• Among others.

This will enable you to assess engineers’ leadership skills and provide career development opportunities while engaging them in fun activities.

Leverage IT Recruiting Agencies

Perhaps your healthcare company does not have a human resources structure that supports long-term remote hires. Maybe you want to focus on understanding your needs and delegate recruiting and onboarding to an external agency.

Let me tell you: it makes sense.

If your team has a lot on their plate, hiring outstanding software developers in your time zone could be an overwhelming task. In such a case, partnering with a seasoned IT recruiting agency is the way to go.

The right tech talent partner will help you create an impact-oriented remote tech hiring strategy aligned with your goals and budget while avoiding common strategy pitfalls.

All in all, hiring the right tech talent partner has countless benefits:

• Recruiting and talent retention without the hassle. Avoid the effort of sourcing, hiring, onboarding, and retaining your technical team.
• Professionals that are at the top of their game. Access the top 3% of Latin American software developers at a fraction of the cost of in-house hiring.
• High-quality HR and talent management professionals. Ensure your remote technical team is managed by a technical HR team with talent acquisition and management capabilities driven by industry-leading tools and expertise.
• A steady level of support. Receive additional support for retaining your talent in the long term. This includes implementing a talent experience strategy, following strict data security protocols, and tracking key performance metrics.

Looking for a Great Tech Talent Partner to Build a Remote Software Development Team?

As the healthcare industry continues to evolve, adopting a flexible approach to remote work is not just a modernization trend—it’s a strategic imperative. This approach unlocks opportunities for cost savings, improved productivity, and a happier, more fulfilled workforce capable of delivering world-class healthcare services from any location. 

For companies looking to break new ground in talent acquisition and operational effectiveness, remote work presents a promising horizon that should not be overlooked.

If you’re looking for the right IT staffing agency for your healthcare company – you’re in the right place. Promising U.S. healthcare companies such as SimplePractice count on us for everything from hiring to retaining top-tier remote software development teams.

Discover why: Schedule a call with one of our matching specialists today.