Understanding Low-Code and No-Code for Healthcare

How LCNC Eases Healthcare Workflows

LCNC platforms empower frontline staff, says Purushothaman.

“Nurses, care coordinators and other nontechnical staff can act as ‘citizen developers’ and create custom workflows without writing a single line of code,” he explains. “Think of how this decentralizes innovation. It also ensures that solutions are designed around real clinical and operational needs.”

Among its use cases in healthcare, LCNC could lessen the amount of manual paperwork, boost operational efficiency and bring savings in development costs, according to Kenneth Harper, general manager of Dragon product management at Microsoft.

“Healthcare organizations are increasingly using LCNC platforms to streamline clinical workflows, especially those that are time-sensitive or prone to manual errors,” Harper says.

Health systems can build LCNC applications to enable care coordination; for instance, using Microsoft PowerApps to automate patient handoffs from the emergency department to an inpatient unit, Harper suggests.

RELATED: Leverage AI for app modernization with CDW’s SAMA.

“Instead of relying on phone calls or paper forms, the ED team completes a digital form that instantly alerts the receiving unit with relevant patient details,” he says.

Hospitals can also use Power Automate — a cloud-based, AI-powered platform that requires minimal code — to send appointment reminders or inform care managers when high-risk patients miss follow-ups, he adds. Microsoft offers templates to create apps for care management and patient outreach.

“These solutions are fast to deploy, secure and scalable,” Harper says. “They integrate with electronic health records, FHIR [Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources] application programming interfaces and centralized data sources such as Microsoft Dataverse, ensuring compliance and interoperability.”

PowerApps also lets hospitals digitize their patient intake and referral processes, Harper explains.

“This flexibility empowers healthcare organizations of all sizes — from large hospital systems to small clinics — to solve everyday challenges with low-code tools,” Harper says. “They’re building apps to schedule appointments, track equipment maintenance, manage clinical trials and even enable patient self-service portals, all within the Power Platform.”

The ease and accessibility that LCNC provides for clinicians, nurses or department analysts enable the democratization of app development, according to Harper.

“This empowers frontline healthcare workers to solve the problems they understand best, without waiting in a long IT queue,” Harper says.

LCNC and Cross-System Integration

LCNC software leads to cross-system integration workflows, especially when standard interfaces between systems exist, says John Hataway, senior director of continuous improvement and automation for Savista, a revenue cycle services provider for healthcare.

“These capabilities can be leveraged in several ways: extracting relevant clinical data from medical records, standardizing data from nonstructured records for workflow integration, developing cross-system data and records transfers or triggering notifications based on specific events,” Hataway explains.

LCNC platforms can also provide automated processes to enable EHR integration and synchronization.

“Prebuilt connectors make it easier to exchange patient data across systems like Epic or Oracle Health without writing custom code,” Purushothaman says.

LCNC also allows automation for clinical decision support, automated documentation and workflow orchestration across departments, he says.

Harper stresses the importance of integration, because low-code apps bring the most value when healthcare organizations connect them to core systems.

“The goal is to avoid data silos; apps should feed into centralized, interoperable systems like Dataverse so that information is accessible and compliant,” Harper says. “This not only improves data quality but also ensures retention and privacy policies are applied consistently.”

Compliance Frameworks and LCNC Security Implications

LCNC technology for medical devices allows healthcare organizations to boost HIPAA compliance with the same safeguards as traditional coding, explains Oracle’s Uliyar. These include end-to-end encryption, audit trails and policy enforcement.

“They also rely on standards like FHIR and SMART [Substitutable Medical Applications, Reusable Technologies] on FHIR, which make apps portable, governable and easier to audit,” Uliyar says. “This allows organizations to innovate rapidly while still being able to address HIPAA, General Data Protection Regulation and regional compliance requirements.”

When building LCNC applications, organizations should perform shadow testing and operate “human-in-the-loop checkpoints,” Uliyar advises. He also recommends phased rollouts and continuous monitoring.

Microsoft’s Power Platform, which enables LCNC work, incorporates security features such as data encryption, role-based access and HIPAA-compliant infrastructure, Harper says.

“HIPAA requires granular user access, and LCNC platforms deliver this through role-based access control, multifactor authentication and privileged-access models,” Purushothaman says. “Automated workflows manage permissions dynamically, reducing the risk of unauthorized access.”

He adds, “With encryption, strong access controls, continuous monitoring and audit readiness, LCNC platforms can meet, and often exceed, the security standards healthcare providers require for PHI protection.”

LCNC Implementation Roadmap for Healthcare

Compared with a traditional EHR custom workflow that can take six to 12 months to deliver, LCNC development is faster, at four to eight weeks, Uliyar explains. Standards-based connectors, reusable components and visual flows could allow healthcare organizations to move from idea to pilot in four to eight weeks, he says.

The steps of low-code or no-code implementation begin with governance, according to Harper. That includes setting up data loss prevention policies and access controls as well as securing leadership buy-in. This stage can also include establishing a center of excellence to guide rollout and support internal app creators, he adds, noting how Texas Children’s Hospital used a CoE model to onboard new developers and guarantee quality and security for its Power Apps.

Organizations should then participate in a high-impact pilot, Harper advises; for example, digitizing a paper intake form or automating an HR workflow.

“This phased approach enables healthcare organizations to innovate safely while maintaining control and compliance,” he says.

ROI Analysis: Development Speed vs. Security Investment

When implementing LCNC tools, healthcare organizations should conduct a robust ROI analysis.

“When health systems evaluate low-code platforms, ROI typically centers on development speed, cost savings and security assurance,” Harper says. With Microsoft’s Power Platform, ROI analysis factors in the cost of HIPAA compliance from the start, he explains.

“A strong ROI analysis weighs reduced development and maintenance costs, faster time-to-value and risk reduction,” Harper says. “For most organizations, the benefits far outweigh the costs, especially when security is handled by the platform itself.”

He also recommends prioritizing governance when it comes to low-code and no-code software development.

“With the right governance in place, low-code platforms empower frontline staff to solve problems they understand best, while IT retains visibility and control. It’s not about replacing traditional development; it’s about complementing it with a secure, scalable way to innovate faster,” Harper says.