ePlus and CHOC – driving better patient outcomes
ePlus is a global provider of technology solutions focused in the areas of cloud, data center, networking, security, and collaboration. Anthony Lakin, Chief Information Security Officer at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), explains that partnering with ePlus and selecting them to address CHOC’s cybersecurity concerns was easy. “I'm very deliberate about my interaction with third party vendors because they need to understand the problem I’m trying to solve and bring value add to that. That's what I found in ePlus; I feel as though they're a deep bench that I can leverage. The services that specifically I partner with them on are vulnerability management as a service and our 24-7 security operations set.”
“Partnerships are the lifeblood of what we do,” says Justin Mescher, VP of Cloud and Data Solutions at ePlus. “I put them into two categories: customer partnerships and technology partnerships. On the technology side, our customers trust us to identify the right technologies to meet their needs. A lot of that involves knowing those technologies inside and out, what fits where, and identifying the best solution to meet the customer’s specific requirements.
“Customer partnerships are why we're here, and ultimately it’s not just understanding the technology side of what our customers need, but the business outcome they're driving towards. In the case of CHOC, technology is used to deliver a better experience for their patients.”
Most of ePlus’ customers are in the process of modernizing their applications and platforms to support their digital transformation initiatives. “Our goal is to be able to continue to align with our customers, to help them be the most efficient service provider back to the business as possible,” Mescher says. “There’s going to be continued investments in cloud, security, AI/ML, and analytics. Those are the areas that are going to maximize that value to the business.”
Lakin says that CHOC’s vision and strategy heavily depend on building strong relationships like the one they have with ePlus. “We've also seen that with the pandemic, having a partner like ePlus allows us to be more agile and dynamic, and that’s going to be paramount to our success.”
“The team at CHOC really stands out to me,” Mescher says. “They are very purposeful about patient outcomes. One consistent theme I've seen across the board interacting with the technology teams at CHOC is that the patient is always number one, and technology supports that need. It's so exciting to work with a team like that,” he adds.