The pressure to do more with less has never been greater in healthcare. IT teams are overwhelmed, budgets are shrinking, and the demand for digital solutions keeps growing.
Yet, sitting quietly in the middle of this storm is a new kind of problem-solver: the citizen developer.
Who is the citizen developer?
They may not have a background in programming, but they know their workflows inside and out. They’re department admins, clinical coordinators, and operations leads who’ve become the go-to folks for fixing processes, building quick solutions, and making tools work better.
But here’s the difference between them and other developers: They do it all without writing a line of code.
That’s because they can’t afford to wait for IT to build what they need. So they do it themselves. All they need is the support and tools to keep building workflows on their own.
The Rise of the No-Code Movement
Traditionally, creating software solutions required deep technical knowledge and development resources. But today, no-code platforms are changing that. These tools give everyday users the ability to build and automate digital workflows—securely, quickly, and without relying on IT.
In healthcare, this allows citizen developers to do things like:
- Create digital intake forms and automate data routing
- Build approval workflows to reduce manual follow-up
- Connect systems like EHRs and databases without custom code
- Standardize documentation and reduce compliance risk
Why Healthcare Needs Citizen Developers
Citizen developers may have been born out of necessity, but their value is immeasurable. In actuality, healthcare organizations especially need citizen developers to keep things running smoothly.
That’s because healthcare moves fast. When a bottleneck appears, whether it’s manual paperwork, disconnected tools, or a slow process, waiting weeks or months for a solution just isn’t viable.
Citizen developers understand the real pain points because they’re living them. When given the right tools, they can create impactful solutions in hours or days instead of months.
It starts by giving them a platform that’s:
- Simple enough to learn and start building workflows without acquiring new technical skills
- Flexible enough to handle real-world healthcare use cases like patient onboarding, referrals, billing, and more
- Secure enough to meet HIPAA and other industry requirements
- Connected enough to integrate with systems like Epic, Oracle, and Salesforce
When citizen developers are equipped with tools that meet these needs, they stop being “workarounds” and start becoming strategic contributors to digital transformation.
Support Your Citizen Developers
You don’t need an army of developers to improve healthcare workflows. You just need the right people and the right tools. It’s not about replacing IT either. It’s about enabling everyone to solve problems faster.
By empowering your citizen developers—from front office staff to medical providers—you can reduce reliance on IT, improve operational efficiency, and deliver better experiences for staff and patients alike.
From its inception, Formstack, powered by the Intellistack platform, has helped managers make it easier on their non-developer teams to build impactful workflows. Now, you can automate every patient experience, from patient acquisition and intake to patient engagement and marketing.
Request a demo or start your 14-day free trial today.
