Smarter makes virtual collaboration more human
MediRevv helps thousands of employees across the United States connect more effectively by using Lenovo ThinkSmart View Teams Display to add powerful video conferencing capabilities to its virtual collaboration environment.
MediRevv, a Tegria company, specializes in healthcare revenue cycle management solutions. It helps healthcare providers in the United States to improve financial outcomes and retain more patients. Founded in 2007, MediRevv has grown from a team of six in Iowa to a nationwide business employing more than 1,500 people across all 50 states.
Adjusting to a new reality
While many organizations had to scramble to enable remote working after the COVID-19 pandemic struck, MediRevv was well ahead of the curve.
Matt Lapka, Director of Technology at MediRevv, explains: “We have offices all over the country, along with a well established work-from-home program. We were already used to collaborating via email, chat, and virtual meetings. When COVID-19 hit, around 95% of our workforce was able to pivot to full remote working with very little disruption.”
Although MediRevv had invested considerable time and effort in setting up a robust virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) for its workforce, one thing was still missing: video conferencing.
Matt Lapka continues: “As we work with healthcare companies, security and compliance are paramount. Our VDI platform needed to meet very strict security standards, including ensuring that no sensitive data was stored on premises at employees’ homes. This meant that we had to compromise in other areas. The platform we opted for did not support standard webcams and audio, which meant no video calls.”
This absence became more of a concern for MediRevv as the pandemic wore on. With practically all in-person interaction paused, the company needed a better way for employees to connect virtually. It launched the search for a collaboration solution that could enable video calls, integrate seamlessly with MediRevv’s existing VDI platform, and meet strict security requirements.
Finding the right solution
MediRevv launched a search for a video conferencing solution, evaluating offerings from multiple vendors before focusing its attention on Lenovo’s SmartOffice portfolio. After engaging Lenovo to discuss potential options, the company moved ahead with a pilot of five Lenovo ThinkSmart View Teams Display devices.
Built on the Microsoft Teams platform, ThinkSmart View is a standalone device that handles video conferencing, chats, calls, scheduling, and more. It comes equipped with an 8” touchscreen, HD camera, powerful speaker, and two 360-degree microphones.
Matt Lapka recalls: “We were really impressed with the quality of the Lenovo ThinkSmart View Teams Display devices. They are solid, well-made, and responsive. Interacting with the touchscreen is very smooth—you press an icon or button and it responds instantly, without any lag. As dedicated Microsoft Teams users, we also appreciated that the Lenovo ThinkSmart View devices are purpose-built for Teams.”
After extensively testing the Lenovo solution, MediRevv was convinced that ThinkSmart View was the right fit for its needs. The company decided to move ahead with a rollout of the solutions to its entire workforce.
This would prove to be a big investment—and an even bigger logistical challenge. It involved securing devices for over 1,000 employees and safely shipping them to thousands of individual addresses all over the United States. To make it happen, MediRevv enlisted the help of longtime partner SHI.
“We’ve worked with SHI for years: they’re our tech experts, and they’ve always been excellent partners to our business,” says Matt Lapka. “We knew that if anyone could help us solve this challenge, it would be SHI, and they absolutely rose to the occasion.”
As a first step, Lenovo helped SHI to secure the supply of 1,200 ThinkSmart View devices from a distributor. SHI then used one of its warehouses as a distribution hub, shipping the Lenovo devices to remote employees at more than 1,000 individual locations on a rolling basis, rather than sending all the devices to MediRevv for them to reship. This helped to avoid overwhelming IT support with over a thousand simultaneous set-ups and made the rollout much more efficient. All in all, it took just 60 days to ship out the devices and get MediRevv’s entire workforce up and running with the new Lenovo solutions. To keep things simple for MediRevv’s procurement and finance teams as well, SHI provided them with a single purchase order covering over 1,000 individual orders—eliminating unnecessary back-end complexity for MediRevv.
Giving business a boost
By investing in smart collaboration tools, MediRevv is helping its people thrive and building a strong foundation for business growth.
Matt Lapka confirms: “We expanded our workforce by almost 40% in 2021 and Lenovo has played a vital role in keeping our ever-growing team connected. We now have over 2,000 devices and counting—the largest deployment of Lenovo ThinkSmart View Teams Display worldwide!”
Remote collaboration is now better than ever at MediRevv. With ThinkSmart View, it’s easy for users to plan and take part in voice and video calls, without impacting work in progress on their PCs. Just as importantly, MediRevv can enable these new features while maintaining strong control over security.
“People love the Lenovo ThinkSmart View devices,” says Matt Lapka. “They’re easy to use, offer great integration with Microsoft Teams, and work regardless of what you’re doing on your PC. The Lenovo team also spent a lot of time making sure that the management, security, and compliance aspects of the ThinkSmart View devices met our requirements. Files that users send via the device are stored in the cloud, not locally. We use Microsoft Intune to manage our devices, which gives us a centralized way of applying security standards and getting an overview of our complete device landscape.”
For MediRevv, virtual collaboration isn’t just a passing trend. It expects hybrid arrangements to be the norm in the future of work—and with Lenovo ThinkSmart, it’s ready for this new reality.
Matt Lapka concludes: “With Lenovo, we’ve finally filled that missing piece in our virtual collaboration puzzle. Video conferencing has been a huge boost to morale, and it’s brought back our strong team culture. People can connect on a much deeper level and work together effectively, no matter where they are. I think that’s going to be key to our future success.
