Healthcare Leaders Group Launches Strategic Digital Transformation by Migrating to AWS

The company recently launched the parent brand, Healthcare Leaders Group, to better encompass the broad range of solutions they provide to the healthcare world. HLG services include Eyecare Leaders, Alta, Clinical Quality Experts, and Practice Builders. HLG provides solutions to clinics and other healthcare providers to manage patient records, human resources, revenue and billing, and regulatory and compliance practices.

As the company acquired new businesses, HLG needed to stay ahead of technology changes. “Migrating to the cloud was a necessity,” says Norman Comstock, chief information officer at Healthcare Leaders Group. “Each of the companies that we acquired came with its own technology stack on its own infrastructure, and the amalgamation of all of it needed close attention.” Some of the applications contained obsolete software, and it was difficult for the company to get an overview of all the pieces of each solution. Additionally, its data center was costly, and the physical constraints of the data center environment were limiting the business.

HLG worked with AWS Professional Services—a global team of experts that help organizations realize their desired business outcomes using AWS—to evaluate its applications and make a plan for the migration. “We needed someone who has the experience to make the migration happen in an efficient manner,” says Comstock. “AWS has experience doing this for thousands of customers.” The AWS Professional Services team provided a dedicated project manager and subject matter experts to guide the project and provide advice and coaching for the HLG team to migrate servers efficiently.

HLG began the migration to the cloud in March 2022 using VMware Cloud on AWS—a fully managed, jointly engineered service that brings VMware’s software-defined data center architecture to the cloud. “VMware Cloud on AWS is a key arrow in our quiver for standing up new businesses and integrating future acquisitions in conformity with our security standards,” says Comstock. HLG set an aggressive timeline to complete the migration to AWS. By using VMware Cloud on AWS, HLG accelerated the exit from the data centers, kept its solutions active for customers during the transition, and maintained compliance with HIPAA regulations. The first server migration took 2 weeks, but after HLG provisioned direct pipeline connections between its data center and AWS and implemented scripts to accelerate the process. In 6 weeks, 68 percent of HLG’s virtual machines were migrated to VMware Cloud on AWS.

During the migration, HLG also began using AWS Managed Services (AMS), which helps customers adopt AWS at scale and operate more efficiently and securely. By using AMS to extend its teams’ operational capabilities—including monitoring, issue detection and management, enhanced security, patching, backup, and cost optimization—HLG could reduce the amount of time that it spends monitoring its existing AWS environment and focus more time on the migration. AMS also helped HLG set up playbooks and runbooks that its DevOps team will continue to use. Additionally, by using AWS, the security posture of HLG solutions improved. HLG used AWS Control Tower—which provides a simple way to set up and govern a secure, multi-account AWS environment—to make sure it was using appropriate identity and access management for its AWS environment from the beginning. “Working with AWS teams has informed us about the shift in thinking that we need to have as we continue to build and support these applications,” says Comstock. “The experience and expertise of the AWS Managed Services team has shown us that there are more agile and cost-effective ways to deploy this technology.”

Another motivator for migrating to AWS was to fuel future innovation. “At HLG, we have to exist in the world of today to meet the needs of our customers as we continue to innovate and find new ways of delivering healthcare for tomorrow,” says James Shin, director of marketing at Healthcare Leaders Group. The company doesn’t just plan on lifting and shifting its applications onto AWS but is actively evaluating how it will modernize its solutions using cloud-native technologies. HLG has set up sandbox environments to accelerate experimentation using AWS Control Tower, and the company is also examining how data can inform decision making and form the basis for the future of integrated health models. “Ultimately by using AWS, we can dive deep into how our customers interact with technology so we can help them put patients first,” says Amiel.

HLG plans to finish the initial migration to AWS by the fourth quarter of 2022. The company is also investigating several new technologies on AWS, including blockchain and machine learning, to continue adding value to its customer solutions.

“Our customers are at the heart of all these investment efforts,” says Amiel. “We’re undergoing this digital transformation because our customers expect us to help them deliver healthcare better and more efficiently, and we can do that using AWS.”