OneNeck® IT Solutions has announced the signing of a contract with Madison-based UW Health to provide colocation space at its near-by Tier 3 data center.

“Shifting our data center asset management to OneNeck will allow our IT professionals to really focus on pure IT,” says Matt Heign, VP and CTO of Information Services at UW Health. “First and foremost, our team will concentrate on IT efforts that directly improve patient care. Second, yet equally important, our team will shift its focus to the entire IT ecosystem and service delivery.”

UW Health consists of six hospitals and 80 outpatient sites including University Hospital, UW Health at The American Center, American Family Children’s Hospital and UW Carbone Cancer Center. With 1,400 physicians and 16,500 employees, UW Health partners with the UW School of Medicine and Public Health to fulfill shared patient care, research, education, and community service missions.

Heign joined UW Health in September 2015 and made it a priority to analyze whether the organization would be better off building a new data center or colocating with a proven provider. After thorough analysis, the conclusion was to colocate services.

“Together, we developed a data center solution that helps UW Health free up capital and human resources,” said Terry Swanson, senior vice president of Sales and Marketing at OneNeck. “This allows UW Health to redirect those resources toward strategic organizational initiatives, while maintaining the highest degree of security, redundancy and reliability. This strategy is a starting point, but offers UW Health long-term flexibility and scalability as their organization grows.”