Case Study: Operation Smile achieves faster, safer surgeries and expanded reach with Microsoft Azure

Changing smiles, changing the world through cloud technology

Operation Smile is a Virginia Beach–based medical nonprofit that provides free cleft lip, cleft palate and facial-repair surgeries to nearly 20,000 children a year worldwide. With a small IT team supporting hundreds of staff and thousands of volunteers across 40+ countries, the organization needed a secure, scalable way to manage sensitive patient records, replace slow manual evaluation workflows, and deliver faster clinical feedback so surgeons could improve outcomes and the nonprofit could safely scale its operations.

Using donated Microsoft cloud tools—Azure to host an EMR and secure data, a custom SharePoint app to automate case intake and evaluator notifications, and Power BI for real-time dashboards—Operation Smile automated workflows and cut evaluation time by two-thirds. Surgeons now get faster, data-driven feedback and comparative performance visualizations; staff access up-to-date dashboards anywhere; patient data meets global compliance; and IT resources are freed to build outreach tools and support the organization’s goal of serving many more children.

Operation Smile

Chris Bryant

Senior Vice President of Enterprise Applications and Technology