SAP ERP Available to Small and Midsized Health Care Providers

Today, SAP announced the release of an ERP solution that suits the needs of small and midsize health care organizations. Smaller health care providers, too, are pressed to have efficient operations while still giving quality care. Optimized IT infrastructure can be one way to reduce costs.

While SAP has designed ERP models for large health care systems, the company worked with LSI Consulting to create a solution geared toward the smaller groups. The application is recast from SAP’s ERP and Best Practices packages.

To build the new product, SAP worked with LSI to analyze previously successful ERP integrations at large medical institutions, then combined the best features, as fitting for smaller organizations. The ERP software is designed for hospitals or medical centers with 400 beds or fewer. The software is made on the basis that the smaller industry providers will need returns in a relatively shorter period of time and at a lower cost point.

LSI has experience in healthcare consulting and IT software deployments, SAP solutions in particular. Steve Roach, director of Healthcare Solutions at LSI Consulting, says, “The solution we have now packaged is designed to address the base set of essential functionalities needed by hospitals enabling them to remain viable in the smaller community setting. That functionality includes financial accounting, supply chain management, including exchange cart processing, and analytics.”

The ERP application, available through LSI, is offered as on-premise or on-demand. The on-demand model is managed, monitored, and maintained by SAP technicians in hosted data centers. This option can reduce capital expenses that would result from installing and self-maintaining the ERP system.

“SAP has an established reputation globally as a provider of healthcare solutions to large medical centers, and has worked in recent years to develop equally beneficial solutions to small and midsize hospitals around the world,” says John Papandrea, senior vice president at SAP, Global Health Sciences Sector. “The introduction of this jointly developed solution, specifically configured to meet the needs of the U.S. market, shows our commitment to this segment as we apply best practices, articulated within a template, to offer a comprehensive solution with flexible deployment options that would mitigate risk and enable rapid time to value for smaller hospitals.”

Tags: health care, SAP ERP