Medicity To Go Live With SAP ERP ECC 6.0

Global Healthcare Providers (GHPL) - Medicity is currently involved in implementing SAP ERP within its computing environment. There are always questions relevant to the vendor selection philosophy, the costs incurred, and many other variables when it comes to implementing an ERP platform. Biztech2 spoke to a GHPL spokesperson, in an exclusive interview in order to figure out the nuances involved in this implementation.

Could you detail the vendor selection process? Why did you choose SAP over other vendors?

The vendor selection process was quite a streamlined one. We floated a Request for Proposal (RFP) eliciting in detail the requirements for the hospital. We were keen on as little customisation as possible, and hence the RFP had a clear statement that customisation should be less than 5 percent.

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This RFP was sent to a few handpicked vendors such as SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft MBS. On the response from the vendor, we found that SAP was the best fit and required as little as 0.5 percent customisation.

We then involved ourselves in detailed discussions with prospective implementation partners to check claims for the best fit for GHPL and its processes. This was followed by negotiations with SAP and Oracle, during which we found SAP to be more flexible and receptive to our needs, as compared to the other vendors and they offered a deal, which was meeting our needs well.

Could you talk about some of the IT requirements specific to the healthcare industry?

The need for high-end delivery, state-of-the-art facilities and critical care is on the rise. Hospitals today have realised that technology can be an effective tool towards efficient business processes.

GHPL’s vision is to be a completely 'Digital Hospital'. Once functional, Medicity will have state-of-the-art IT functionality and IT will play a key role in the delivery chain of the hospital.

In order to streamline our processes, we have in place a HIS (Health Information System) from IBAHealth integrated with RIS (Radiology Information System), LIS (Laboratory Information System), Drug dB, PACS alongwith 10G LAN. LAN will have 6,000 nodes once the hospital is fully functional including WLAN and internal VoIP telephony.

The HIS will aid the front office functionality for Medicity and will be integrated with SAP for the backend.

How long was the implementation process? Could you give us some details on the same?

It is important to mention that the implementation is not complete and has been planned in two phases.

The first phase will cover the implementation of the entire Finance module along with the Materials Management module. We are also looking at building interfaces to facilitate two-way communication between IBA and SAP for AR/ AP, Materials (such as pharmacy, OT Consumables etc). We are also looking to implement part of HR (Masters) and Payroll.

Coming down to the second phase, we are looking at the Hire to Retire cycle of HR including Employee Self Service, as well as Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul for Hospital Engineering.

What are some of the other systems that the ERP will be communicating with? Could you give me a view in terms of how the technology framework will enable Medicity to be a better healthcare provider?

Medicity has a vision of care, trust and transparency in all transactions. Our new technology framework will enable transparent billing, OT scheduling leading to online clinician access for care planning. Also, the AR/ AP settlements are envisaged to be online.

Could you discuss the cost incurred for this entire initiative? Also, could you discuss your IT roadmap for the next few quarters?

The implementation at Medicity is a Greenfield project considering the facility did not have a concrete infrastructure prior to this. With an IT budget of approximately INR 50 crore, we envision the hospital to be completely IT enabled, powered by integrated information systems, which will shorten or eliminate many mundane processes.

In the near future, the hospital is looking to fully integrate its eHIS system with SAP, which will communicate with PACS, LIS and RIS. As part of phase II of the initiative, the healthcare provider will develop an enterprise portal for patient care and employees, along with the deployment of clinical decision support systems, and clinical analytics for CRO.