A large part of my career has been spent on healthcare systems. From Point of Care machines running in laboratories worldwide, through a thrombosis portal with BLE-INR meters and COVID portals for test registration and intake, to an educational platform for deaf and hard-of-hearing children and an AWBZ transition algorithm for health insurers. The common thread: software where a mistake rarely stays just a software mistake.
What makes healthcare software special is how close the technology gets to reality. A few seconds of delay, an unclear notification, or a mistranslated button can have consequences in the treatment room or the lab. That forces a way of working in which validation, error handling, and observability are not afterthoughts but starting points.
In practice I often connect worlds in this sector that each speak their own language: medical devices with XML protocols, translation systems with visual context, registers and public-health reporting, and back-office systems running on entirely different rhythms. My job is to wire those worlds together so the result is predictable, verifiable, and doesn't break the moment one party rolls out a new version.
A second recurring theme is rule-driven processing with provable correctness. The AWBZ transition revolved around an algorithm that decided per client which arrangement applied — a matter in which every rule had to be traceable to its source. The COVID step configurator revolved around flows that could change weekly because guidance kept evolving. In both cases I chose explicit, readable models over clever shortcuts.
User experience also takes on a particular weight in this sector. Patients, informal carers, clinicians, and lab staff differ widely in background, tempo, and stress. Accessibility (WCAG), responsiveness across very different devices, and clear language aren't nice-to-haves in healthcare projects — they're hard requirements, and something I gladly invest in because the difference is immediately noticeable.
Working in healthcare for me also means working in multidisciplinary teams: clinical specialists, policy people, product managers, and developers. In a sector where context drives every decision, working close to the content isn't a luxury — it's why I keep happily picking up new healthcare projects.