Verity Health System and T2 Tech: A Partnership Built on Trust

Much of IT consulting is about trust. Clients engage us because they know we can bring value-driven results through advisory services, technology strategy, and efficient project management. As a team of subject matter experts frequently brought in to improve IT, it is our responsibility to live up to the trust our clients grant us.

Before joining T2 Tech, I worked as the CIO and CTO of Children's Hospital Los Angeles for over five years. At CHLA, I partnered with T2 Tech during the Marion and John E. Anderson Pavilion construction and IT transformation, and I saw that their team could be trusted to deliver value while carrying the responsibility that large-scale healthcare IT projects require.

Just three months after becoming a partner at T2 Tech, I am watching the company grow as a result of increasing trust in the community. We are now managing an IT ecosystem transformation at Verity Health System, our biggest project to date.

A major responsibility

Verity Health System was owned by Daughters of Charity and started by nuns as a charitable endeavor. After years of dealing with insufficient resources, BlueMountain Capital Management took control of the whole system and brought on T2 Tech as a partner to transform the IT environment over the next four to five years.

Our general goal is to provide a secure and robust IT infrastructure that lets Verity compete in the market, form partnerships, and ensure continuity of care for the communities it serves. To get there, we need to enhance security in the end-user computing environment, consolidate the data center and infrastructure, and deliver critical application upgrades.

During data center transitions of this nature, it is imperative that the hospitals in the system keep running and continue to support wellness in their communities. A migration that interrupts patient care is not a successful migration, no matter how clean the technical execution. That constraint shapes every decision on a project like this.

Delivering value

I have seen the T2 Tech team's commitment to value firsthand. On the Verity project, we brought in project managers and engineers from around the country to collaborate on a comprehensive strategy. We know we are not in this alone, and we are committed to bringing on board the team members who have provided quality IT services to Verity for years.

Our operational strategy is practical, with a detailed project plan built to ensure the success of higher-priority objectives. To execute it, we use an agile-based method with two-week sprints and daily scrum calls. We stress-test performance after each sprint, measure success by the effort required to complete tasks, and build in reflection between iterations.

The expected outcome

This execution method lets our project managers coordinate and motivate the team efforts our engineers helped architect. When the collaborative work is complete, we expect a successful data center migration that delivers a more reliable and cost-efficient IT infrastructure, along with upgraded applications and few disruptions to hospital operations.

The measure of success here is not only technical. A transformation of this scale succeeds when physicians and clinicians have systems they can rely on, when other end users get real value from the tools they use every day, and when patients ultimately experience better outcomes. Those are the objectives we are confident we will achieve, and they are the reason a project like this is worth the trust placed in it.

There is also a longer arc worth naming. Assessments and early wins on a project of this size tend to become the foundation of a lasting relationship, because they give both sides firsthand knowledge of the environment and a track record of delivery to build on. A four to five year engagement is not a single transaction, it is a series of commitments kept, and each one earns the standing to take on the next.

For more background, T2 Tech Group's newsroom carries the press release on the firm revitalizing Verity Health System's IT infrastructure.