Things to Know When You Hire a CTO for a Healthcare Startup

Hiring the best CTO (Chief Technology Officer) is crucial to define the success of a healthcare startup. Businesses with strong tech measures reported tech ROI of 35 percent in the 2021 revenue growth premium.

For non-technical founders, it’s challenging to decipher the best CTO from the applicant list. Lack of specific technical knowledge makes it hard to find a trustworthy CTO, who is also willing to invest time and effort in the betterment of a company.

Continue reading this article to get a clear perspective on how to hire a CTO for a healthcare startup and its roles and responsibilities.

4 CTO Personas to Lookout For

According to a report by Gartner, there are four CTO personas and these are as follows:

1. Business Enabler

The business enabler CTO consists of those who are in charge of operational technology and lead a team of engineers. They assure that the technology is functioning as intended and customer demands are met. Some of the responsibilities of a business enabler CTO include:

a. To make decisions on technology investment.

b. Collaborating with engineering and product teams to redesign and develop new products.

c. Building digital business platforms.

d. Risk assessments while introducing operational technology and any new information within an organization.

2. Digital Business Leader

A digital business leader focuses on using innovative technologies to transform a company’s business model, service, and product. CTOs must have an understanding of technology trends and how they can be applied within a company. Typical responsibilities include:

a. Working with business functions and understanding market requirements.

b. Drive strategic thinking for a company, which encompasses innovative management, enterprise architecture, and R&D.

c. Collaborating with CIOs to work towards rationalizing, identifying, and forming new business models.

3. IT Innovator

An IT innovator acts like a leader to innovative managers, enterprise architects, and technology specialists in IT services. This persona is the head of architecture and reports to the CIO. Responsibilities include:

a. Leading a team of software engineers who specialize in DevOps and agile methodologies.

b. Serve as a central point for technology innovation.

c. Modernize infrastructure and leverage technologies such as edge computing, multicloud, automation, and containerization.

4. Chief Operating Officer of IT

This persona focuses on the daily operations of IT and frees CIO to work on the strategic aspects of a business. The main goal of the chief operating officer is to meet deliveries of IT services and support the existing model. Some of the responsibilities include:

a. Assuring that external and internal systems are functioning the way they should be, and actively responding to incidents that affect these systems.

b. Maintaining IT operations via IT service management, shared IT services, vendor management, telecommunications, data center, and security.

c. Procurement of technology such as CRM or ERP, which are highly optimized and modern.

When to Hire a CTO for a Healthcare Startup?

1. There’s a Lack of Technical Expertise

Healthcare startups that have little or no technical expertise must consider getting a CTO to manage technical requirements, innovations, and projects. Executives are required to have more than just a passing familiarity with technical skills; if they’re to identify competence amongst those carrying out work. Without this, technical projects have a poor chance of success.

Hiring a CTO for a healthcare startup makes it easier to keep the day-to-day accountability of a project. The presence of a skilled CTO also has a direct impact on project outcomes. Further, a lack of technical skills delays the launches and deliveries of products or services. This eventually makes it easy to lose ground to competitors.

The risk of losing high-stake projects, along with low-quality products hampers the overall company’s success. Hence, it’s essential to hire a chief technology officer who can form a team of expert developers and guide them toward project completion on time.

2. Company Needs Digital Transformation

CTOs can help to shift focus from traditional technology management to digital transformation and make organizations ready for the future. With digital transformation, CTOs can deliver effective services and gain a competitive edge in the market.

Consumers expect companies to adapt to the best online solutions to deliver their services. Hence, hiring a CTO can be the best option to meet all consumer demands.

Furthermore, digital transformation offers an opportunity for core business functions to move away from manual work. Enabling automation in key areas such as payrolls helps executives to focus on other business aspects. Additionally, the healthcare sector can benefit immensely from the usage of technologies such as AI and machine learning to automate heaps of medical data.

3. Guidance for Software Development Process

Technical expertise makes CTO an ideal person who can mentor and train a team better. Chief technology officers are better equipped to help businesses to scale, grow, and become competitive entity in the market. With organizational skills, management abilities, leadership traits, and technical expertise, a CTO is suited to guide the development process.

4. A Need for Company Growth

The technological landscapes are ever-changing and companies are required to keep up with the technological innovations in the healthcare sector. A CTO plans and thinks to create guiding frameworks that’ll help organizations to withstand technological evolution.

A disruptive strategy penned by a CTO not only ensures company growth but also helps to meet consumer expectations. Further, CTO can better collaborate with senior leaders and envision technical improvements, research, and minimize debt if any. This in turn augments the overall growth of a company or organization.

4 Tips for Hiring a CTO for a Healthcare Startup

1. Check for Experience and Technical Skills

An experienced CTO brings surplus knowledge to the table, which helps in project management. Not a must, but a CTO with industry experience has a much more contextual understanding of problems and which software can resolve issues effectively.

Additionally, industry experience is useful to determine the roadmap and strategy for a company. In the healthcare sector, finding a CTO with prior experience in EHR (Electronic Health Records) or healthcare software development is a boon. This adds to the credibility when it comes to dealing with internal business leaders.

2. Search Platforms to Find an Ideal CTO

Hiring a CTO for healthcare startups is easy through search through platforms where C-level communication takes place. Platforms such as Reddit, and Angel. co or CoFoundersLab is useful for interacting with C-suite.

Apart from this, social media sites such as LinkedIn are great tools to connect and find the best professionals in the industry. Search platforms paves way for a wide talent pool from diverse backgrounds and regions. A talent pool helps to identify the best from the list and is also a way to reel in passive candidates as well.

3. Scrutinize Entrepreneurial and Leadership Skills

Apart from technical skills, ensure to also look into a CTO’s entrepreneurial and leadership skills, as this is an essential aspect of a management position. Companies can check for these skills by analyzing whether they can align projects with company goals.

Additionally, check if a CTO candidate can boost motivation at the workplace, communicate progress, and also plan for the future. A CTO is focused on accomplishing long-term company goals and working with executives to steer a company in the right direction.

Furthermore, the leadership skills of a CTO are essential to solving issues if the budget is tight and delivering the best product/service. Ensure to observe these traits during an interview process for a CTO.

4. Collaborate With a Healthcare IT Staffing Company

Collaborating with a healthcare software development company or healthcare staffing company is the best choice as they can help to recruit niche-specific CTOs.

Such CTOs have vast industry knowledge and they needn’t be trained on various rules and regulations which are followed while developing healthcare software or application. This saves plenty of time and energy, which can be used for more essential aspects of business such as new project launches or fixing glitches in the software.

Arkenea is a leading healthcare software development company, which also specializes in healthcare IT recruiting and staffing solutions. Arkenea can guide and offer best-in-class CTOs for your healthcare startup. Get in touch to know more about it.

Staffing companies help their clients to streamline hiring processes by conducting screening tests, interviews, and job postings. Prior knowledge of the IT market and current trends makes it easier for staffing companies to pick up experts and skilled professionals.