Minnesota Department of Health

 Minnesota, USA

 Champion since 2023

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) embraced the cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2018 and has since completely reinvented the way they use technology to protect, maintain, and improve the health of all Minnesotans. Through its partnership with the state’s IT agency, Minnesota IT Services (MNIT), MDH has taken a holistic approach to not only embracing cloud infrastructure but transforming into a DevOps organization.

They started small, with high-value repeatable patterns. MDH and MNIT built teams that could experiment, iterate, and deliver quickly. They created catalogs of services that enabled developers to self-provision resources. When COVID-19 hit, they were prepared to embrace native AWS data lakes to unify disparate data and inform the state’s response. MDH also benefitted from the MNIT DevOps transformation to develop applications at an unprecedented pace and keep up with COVID-19 response needs. While MDH’s original fame came from their pandemic response and embracing data lakes, what sets them apart is the strong partnership between MNIT and MDH teams.

What is the AWS State and Local Government Champions Program?

The AWS State and Local Government Champions program recognizes, celebrates, and supports organizations driving digital transformation with cloud computing. The purpose of the program is to acknowledge customers that have used AWS products and services in innovative ways to improve the service to their communities. The organizations selected to receive this award share the mission to transform and advance state and local government to better serve their constituents. This community will provide relatable stories for other state and local government customers to reference as they think about their own digital transformation journey.