Healthcare Power Platform Transformation

A regional healthcare system with 5 hospitals transformed their IT request backlog into a citizen developer program, reducing app development time by 70% and saving $500K annually through Power Apps and Power BI implementation.

Problem

A regional healthcare system with 5 hospitals and 8,000 employees was drowning in IT requests. Every department needed custom applications and reports, but the IT team had a 2-year backlog. Business users were building shadow IT solutions with no governance. The challenges included:

• IT backlog: 2-year wait for custom applications
• Shadow IT: Departments using unapproved tools with security risks
• Reporting delays: Manual report compilation taking days
• No self-service: Business users dependent on IT for everything
• High costs: $500K+ annually on external development vendors

Solution

Nurture Solutions implemented a Power Platform Center of Excellence with Power Apps for custom applications, Power BI for dashboards, and Power Automate for workflows. The approach included:

• Power Apps canvas apps: Custom applications for patient intake, equipment tracking, and compliance
• Power BI dashboards: Real-time operational dashboards for each department
• Power Automate workflows: Automated approval processes and notifications
• Citizen developer program: Training and governance for business users
• Center of Excellence: Standards, templates, and support structure

KPIs and Results

Key Takeaways

1. Start with governance: Establish guardrails before enabling citizen developers
2. Train champions: Identify and enable power users in each department
3. Build templates: Reusable components accelerate development
4. Connect data sources: Power Platform works best with integrated data
5. Measure adoption: Track apps built, users served, and time saved