Hey everyone! I'm a student currently involved in a project with a multi-speciality dental hospital in India, and they're looking to migrate their entire patient database to the cloud. Here's a quick rundown of the situation:
- The hospital has around 380 GB of data that includes patient records, billing information, and dental imaging (like X-rays and scans).
- There are also some older backups stored on external drives that need to be incorporated into the cloud system.
- Local systems have patient data that need to be synced as well.
- They don't have an in-house IT team, so ongoing maintenance and support will be necessary.
I have a couple of questions:
1. How should I approach pricing for this migration? Should it be a flat fee, charge per GB, or per system? What's a reasonable price range for this kind of work in India?
2. For monthly cloud maintenance (including monitoring, backups, access control, etc.), what do developers usually charge if there's no IT team? Is it better to go with a fixed retainer or charge per incident?
Thanks a lot for your help! I'm trying to balance my learning with responsible pricing since it's a real healthcare project.
2 Answers
I'd suggest going with a flat fee for each user or system, maybe around $75-150 per user. For maintenance, charging hourly with a fixed retainer sounds smart, and I'd recommend doubling the rate for any after-hours work. That way, you’re covered for all the ongoing needs without overextending yourself.
It's really concerning that you're tackling something this big without experience! Migrating sensitive medical data has tons of accountability issues, and you might be getting in way over your head. Just a heads up, make sure you understand the legal implications before proceeding.
I appreciate the concern! I actually reached out to the hospital to assist them with automation first, and they asked for my help on the cloud migration. I'm not doing it all alone; I'm coordinating with their existing software providers to ensure everything's in order.