As a nonprofit healthcare ministry based in Louisiana, Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System (FMOLHS) is dedicated to delivering quality care and leveraging efficiencies to enhance the experience of their clinicians. Recognizing the potential benefits of cloud computing, they embarked on a journey to migrate their critical workloads to Amazon Web Services (AWS). Through this transition, they recognized several opportunities to heighten their cloud maturity, such as improving the management of migration complexities, augmenting cloud skills, and strengthening cloud governance.

By partnering with AHEAD, an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner, FMOLHS was empowered to create a secure and compliant AWS landing zone, conduct comprehensive assessments, develop a strategic roadmap, establish a cloud operating model, and train their staff on AWS services.

As a result, FMOLHS was able to stand up a secure and compliant AWS environment and enhance their migration readiness while promoting cost optimization, skill development, and strong governance in alignment with their business objectives and regulatory requirements.

Transforming Healthcare in Louisiana

Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System (FMOLHS) is a nonprofit healthcare ministry based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For over 100 years, FMOLHS’s strategic vision has enabled transformative patient care across major hospitals, community clinics, and specialty care centers throughout Louisiana and Jackson, Mississippi.

FMOLHS’s vision to reshape healthcare by delivering faster, more comprehensive care, relied on running critical workloads in their on-premises data center. Understanding the value of migrating to the cloud, FMOLHS engaged with AHEAD and AWS to embark on its cloud journey.

The Challenge

With widespread enthusiasm for adoption, FMOLHS sought guidance in the following areas to accelerate their cloud journey:

• Migration Complexity: FMOLHS needed to manage the complexity of seamlessly migrating critical healthcare applications from diverse on-premises environments to the cloud while adhering to stringent uptime mandates.
• Skill Augmentation: FMOLHS recognized the importance of bridging cloud environment knowledge gaps and leveraging proven frameworks for their public cloud migration. They sought guidance on accelerating their journey through programs like AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP), which offers cost-effective tools and strategies tailored for seamless cloud transitions.
• Need for Cloud Governance: FMOLHS wanted to establish a robust cloud governance framework aligned with their on-premises environment to ensure regulatory compliance while embarking on their healthcare cloud migration.

Why AWS?

FMOLHS opted to leverage AWS to evolve its cloud environment due to their flexibility and cost-efficiency.

AHEAD Solution

As an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner, AHEAD stepped in to address FMOLHS’s cloud adoption requirements. The solution included:

• Comprehensive Assessments: AHEAD conducted thorough assessments of FMOLHS’s cloud architecture, account structure, and costs.
• Strategic Roadmap: Based on the assessments, AHEAD provided a detailed 5-year roadmap covering governance, financial operations, cost optimization, skill development, landing zone implementation, and migration planning.
• Cloud Landing Zone: AHEAD helped FMOLHS create a secure and compliant AWS landing zone based on AWS best practices and the Well-Architected Framework.
• Cloud Operating Model: AHEAD assisted FMOLHS in establishing a robust cloud operating model, defining roles and responsibilities, and building a cloud center of excellence (CoE).
• Staff Training: AHEAD provided training sessions to educate FMOLHS’ team on several AWS services, Terraform, and GitHub for efficient cloud operations.

The Initial Results

Through their partnership with AHEAD and AWS, FMOLHS received comprehensive assessments of their cloud architecture, account structure, and costs. AHEAD also provided a detailed 5-year cloud adoption and migration roadmap, which was unlocked by AWS MAP funding and helped optimize operational costs.

By the end of the engagement, FMOLHS had a secure and compliant AWS landing zone, a robust cloud operating model, and a governance framework in place. The FMOLHS team was also empowered with AWS expertise and training through road-mapping and skill development sessions, fostering end-user self-sufficiency in their cloud operations.

“AHEAD delivered to what they committed. A scalable solution that allows us to leverage multiple cloud tenants by educating our team members through their discovery and implementation processes.” Said Chris Newsom, IT Director at FMOLHS.

By leveraging AHEAD’s expertise and AWS technologies, FMOLHS successfully launched its cloud transformation, enabling secure and efficient cloud adoption while meeting business objectives and regulatory requirements.