Client story CHA Cuts 4,300 Licenses With Google Workspace Adoption

Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) stands at the forefront of a major shift in how healthcare teams work together. As hospitals across the country face rising costs and complex security threats, CHA proves that a bold move toward modern digital tools can solve both challenges.

This innovative healthcare system serves 150,000 patients in the Boston, Massachusetts, area and is committed to providing excellent care for every person, every time. By adopting a Google Workspace-first path, CHA transformed their daily operations into a more secure and efficient environment for thousands of staff members.

The challenge: Transitioning users to Google Workspace

For many years, CHA operated with two different productivity and collaboration solutions. While the organization had moved to Google Workspace for email and meetings years ago, they still owned 5,500 legacy licenses that didn’t expire for many years.

Because CHA already owned these licenses, there was no immediate pressure to change. However, as 2026 approached, these legacy licenses were reaching their end-of-life.

This created several serious challenges:

• High costs: Renewing thousands of licenses for a growing workforce wasn’t a desirable or achievable budget goal.
• Security risks: Legacy, unsupported software often contains vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit.
• Fragmented workflows: Maintaining two productivity solutions meant staff often used different tools for the same tasks, creating confusion and data silos.
• Emotional resistance: Leadership knew that simply taking away familiar tools like Microsoft Excel^® would elicit emotional responses from staff who had relied on them for years.

The solution: Large-scale change management for workplace transformation

CHA collaborated with Insight to lead a large-scale change management initiative. Rather than a standard IT rollout, this project focused on work transformation consulting to understand how people actually worked.

The team implemented a multi-step solution:

• Discovery and deep dives: The team conducted 44 stakeholder interviews and sent out organizational questionnaires. These deep dives helped identify hidden applications and external dependencies that a typical IT audit might miss.
• Flipping the script: Insight consultants framed the change as a collaboration. They acted as advocates to help CHA staff find better ways to do their jobs using Google Workspace and Google Sheets as opposed to “taking away” Excel. “Insight was able to advocate for employees to be able to continue to do their jobs and continue their operations the way they need to,” says Amy Morrison, IT project manager at CHA.
• Targeted resources: Insight created 10 custom job aids to help users move from Excel to Sheets. These tools showed staff how to perform specific tasks in the new environment.
• Flexible training: Since healthcare professionals have busy schedules, the Insight team offered remote webinars, recorded sessions, and drop-in Q&A meetings during off-hours.
• Real-time tracking: A management dashboard gave CHA leadership a clear view of the project’s progress and staff sentiment.

The outcome: Large license reduction and enhanced security

Quantifiable benefits

The results of the project went beyond the initial expectations:

• Major license reduction: CHA dropped their dependency on legacy software from 5,500 users to just 1,200, for a cut of 4,300 licenses.
• Financial success: The final number of retired licenses beat the targets set in CHA’s budget by a large margin, leading to big cost savings. “Reducing our legacy license count to 1,200 beats what we projected in our budget,” says Jeannette Currie, chief information and digital officer at CHA. “We had a goal that we had to meet, and we far exceeded that. I’m thrilled with the results.”
• High engagement: Training sessions saw high attendance early on, and as users became more comfortable with Google Workspace, their need for support gradually tapered off.

Qualitative improvements

• Enhanced security: Retiring old, unsupported software removed zero-day vulnerabilities and improved the overall security of patient data. “Hackers are often looking to exploit zero-day vulnerabilities in unsupported software,” says Currie. “It's absolutely imperative that we don’t leave old unsupported versions of software in our mix. The less we have to worry about that, the better it is for all of us that we're not vulnerable to those attacks.”
• Better collaboration: Staff now use a unified solution, making it easier to share documents and work together in real-time.
• Morale and culture: By communicating clearly and listening to employee concerns, CHA avoided the usual upset calls that follow major IT changes. “I always know if I don't get a call, then it's been a really good implementation,” says Currie. “This was one that I was ready to field some calls, and that simply didn’t happen.”
• Mobility: Healthcare practitioners, leadership, and staff can now access slides and other files from their phones, letting them prepare for meetings even while on the move. “The portability improvement is great,” says Currie. “I certainly appreciate being out of the office and receiving a presentation that I need to look at before a meeting and having that at my fingertips without needing to think about it.”

Future outlook

The organization recently rolled out Gemini Google Workspace’s native AI tool, to the entire workforce. Staff are already using it for creative morale boosts and complex tasks like summarizing contracts. “The Gemini effect is real and notable as people realize the true power of that tool,” says Currie. “CHA plans to continue our collaboration with Insight for targeted AI training to keep improving efficiency.”