Comprised of a wide variety of healthcare facilities, including the Metro Health Village, Wyoming, Michigan-headquartered Metro Health offers its patients an equally wide bevy of services. The group includes a 208-bed hospital and 12 neighborhood physicians located throughout the West Michigan area.

Highly innovative in its approach to patient care, Bill Lewkowski, CIO of Metro Health, stopped by theCUBE’s mobile studio at HP Discover in Las Vegas this year, talking with co-hosts Dave Vellante and Jeff Frick about the company’s operating strategies.

Small-sized advantage

Being a small healthcare provider, Metro Health does not have the monetary power behind it that many, much larger organizations do. Though, the company does have some advantages.

When asked how the small size of their organization has helped them, Lewkowski responded, “It gives us that agility, that flexibility. We don’t have a bureaucracy above us to make decisions. We move quick. We are very innovative compared to anybody, let alone a 200-bed hospital.”

Metro Health’s overall strategy

While bigger institutions typically incorporate different strategies when it comes to the business and technical aspects of running a state-of-the-art healthcare facility, Metro Health basically has no separate IT strategy.

When talking about what technology has done for the organization’s overall strategy, Lewkowski explained, “We are all about strategizing. And embedded in that is the technology.

“So, when we know we have a strategy that’s going to increase a certain service line in the hospital, or we have a strategy to provide excellent primary care and integrate it all together, it’s inherent that technology is embedded in that strategy. So our technology strategy is in all of our core strategies.”

The future at Metro Health

When asked about any future projects Metro health was working on, Lewkowski responded that the most noteworthy thing the organization was currently working on was their virtualized desktop environment. This includes switching to an all-flash array for their cloud architecture.

The initiative allows Metro to improve its overall performance and give the organization access to the data they need, when they need it. This grew out of a desire to improve performance, especially in the area of video storage.