Shifting to a DevOps model and implementing continuous performance strategies are crucial for enhancing efficiency and collaboration in healthcare’s legacy systems. Learn how Jaime Martinez improved performance engineering in healthcare by implementing DevOps and shifting left.
Video Insights About Performance Engineering in Healthcare
🚀 Standardizing performance testing across business lines with 9-person teams and repeatable processes enabled Jaime Martinez to improve efficiency by 6 months, increasing output from 1 project per month to 20 projects per year.
🌐 Browser-based testing accelerates scripting by 1 or 2 days compared to network-based testing, allowing early issue identification like uncompressed images causing 20-second homepage load times.
🏥 In large healthcare systems with 50+ year histories, using a single tool supporting Citrix, terminal emulation, and legacy protocols is crucial for comprehensive testing due to mandates and legal requirements.
🤝 Successful performance engineers are team players who collaborate with developers, remain flexible, and communicate effectively with a servant mindset to build trust and demonstrate value.
📈 Implementing standardized testing processes across multiple business lines enables faster and better results over time, improving patient experience and operational efficiency in complex healthcare systems. Performance engineering in healthcare is a vital part of IT.
Performance Engineering in Healthcare: Transforming Legacy Systems
In the newest edition of “The Performance Tour,” host Scott Moore takes the audience to the performance engineering in healthcare, an area usually seen as sluggish in taking up modern practices. The show includes Jaime Martinez, a performance engineering expert at one of the world’s largest private health systems which is also excellent in engineering.
Shifting Left in a Legacy Environment
Jaime tells us about the event that he had when he decided to implement a performance testing system that was standardized in many lines of business in a company that has a history of over 50 years and has different older systems. This kind of experiments on which Jaime embarked is a crystal clear evidence that it is totally doable and a company is able to go left in terms of converting performance testing early and, moreover, embracing DevOps’ principles in the sectors that are usually slower in realization.
The Power of Process
One of the strategies involved the development of a repeatable process for performance testing. He started off by writing down the questions he most frequently asked in the meetings, from where he was able to:
- bring down the time taken per meeting from 1 hour to 30 minutes
- Have a pre-meeting to gather necessary information ahead of time
- Handle several projects simultaneously
This structured way of handling the projects then increased the level of productivity whereby in one year, Jaime was able to accomplish more than 20 projects in a single year.
Leveraging Browser-Based Testing
Jaime insists on browser-based testing-a “magic protocol” that, for him, had the advantage of enabling him to deal with single sign-on issues. It allows for much earlier identification of performance problems in the development cycle. It helped him develop scripts more quickly, 1-2 days faster, compared to network-based testing
One of the success stories was being able to catch uncompressed images issues right from the very beginning of the development process, which saved many hours.
Balancing Legacy and Modern Technologies
The healthcare industry often requires supporting both legacy and modern systems. Jaime discusses the continued use of technologies like Citrix and even green screen applications for critical healthcare records. This underscores the need for performance testing tools that support a wide range of protocols, from legacy to cloud-native.
Building Trust and Collaboration
Jaime’s success wasn’t just about technical skills. He shares valuable advice for performance engineers working in large organizations:
- Present yourself as part of the team, not an authority figure
- Speak up when necessary, but in a helpful manner
- Build close relationships with developers to earn their trust
- Be flexible and adaptable, going beyond your job description when needed
By following these principles, Haim was able to integrate performance testing into the approval process for projects within just 18 months.
The Impact of Passion and Process
The most important thing it points out is that Jaime’s “secrets” to success aren’t really secrets at all. They focus on collaboration, communication, organization, and true passion for performance engineering. They help reduce friction in addition to enhancing processes for everyone on the team, showing that performance engineering can be done in any industry, regardless of the speed of change.
This episode of “The Performance Tour” is an inspiring example for performance engineers facing similar challenges in industries that are heavy on legacy applications. It shows how the proper approach and mindset an even in the most complex environments, performance testing practices can be advanced over time.
Check out this other episode that talks about building and scaling internal performance engineering teams.
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