Healthcare organizations today are looking at ways to improve the quality of patient care, increase operational efficiency and enhance treatment outcomes. They are in search of cost-effective technologies to achieve these goals and optimize their backend operations. It is imperative for these organizations to streamline their information flow and communication. An Enterprise Resource Planning technology (ERP) software can play a big role in their endeavor.
The ERP market worldwide is projected to grow from $145.44 billion in 2020 to $148.37 billion in 2021. Further, the market is growing at a rate of 8.1% and is expected to reach USD 202.28 billion in 2025. The growth is mainly driven due to businesses rearranging their operations after the COVID-19 impact.
In the past couple of decades, ERP systems have gained significant traction across industries. The promise of several gains including large efficiency improvements, streamlining communication, better productivity, and other strategic benefits have led to this popularity. The healthcare industry too can benefit from ERP software and leverage it to boost operational efficiencies, optimize cost, and drive value.
According to a recent Cardinal Health survey, 40% of healthcare organizations stated that they have had to cancel surgeries due to lack of supplies while another 69% needed to delay cases due to missing supplies. An ERP solution can address such issues and many others faced by hospitals.
ERP system can be used to streamline processes, such as patient relationship management, finance and billing, supply chain management, medical equipment, inventory management, and compliance management. ERP can help the healthcare industry to modernize its IT systems and digitalize its operations to help them address various challenges.
Why Healthcare Organizations Need ERP?
Healthcare professionals and clinicians are demanding technologies that will assist them in extending quality patient care and at an affordable cost. The need for integrating patient data across disparate systems and apps is driving the adoption of healthcare ERP. Such integration of data can help healthcare providers speed up various processes thereby enhancing patient experience and care.
Gemini Consulting & Services has a decade of experience providing ERP implementation, migration and modernization services to public and private organizations. Our team is well versed with healthcare industry requirements and has built strong authority in implementing various ERPs. Get in touch with us to avail our services to deploy ERP and enhance efficiency.
Benefits of ERP for the Healthcare Industry
- Improved Patient Care: ERP software can help healthcare providers with remote access to patient data and other resources and help them monitor patients remotely. An ERP solution will ensure key patient information is accessible across multiple departments.
- Reducing Costs: Healthcare organizations are under immense pressure to make care affordable. This can only happen if they can reduce their operating costs. ERP systems can drive efficiency in their processes, automate many tasks and reduce expenses.
- Patient Engagement: ERPs can play a big role in driving patient engagement by facilitating easy communication between physicians and patients. ERP software can help healthcare organizations in synchronizing patient databases and take patient engagement to the next level.
- Intelligence & Insights: ERPs can become the central location to store essential data on processes and patients. The staff can update all the data placed in the ERP system. This data can then further be processed using data science technologies like AI, Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) etc., to extract intelligence and insights.
- Complete Visibility: Implementing an ERP system can provide 360-degree visibility of processes and operations to decision-makers to help them make better decisions. This will help improve the management of the organization.
- Helps in Digitalization: The COVID-19 pandemic has made us realize the importance of digitalization and has led to many healthcare organizations adopting digital technologies in their operations. An ERP system can fit well into your digital strategy and help you adopt new technologies and integrate with other systems.
Choosing the Right ERP Software for the Healthcare Sector
There are many ERP providers including leading names like SAP, Oracle and Microsoft. With so many options, it is not easy to select the right ERP software for your organization. Here are simple steps to help you make an informed choice.
- Identify and document your current business needs, processes, pain points, and strengths.
- Understand how an ERP system will align with your current IT infrastructure.
- Understand the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of the ERP including hidden costs
- Compare various ERPs and pick the best one.
The Next Steps…
- Find an experienced implementation partner
- Kickstart your ERP implementation process
- Test your ERP environment
- Train your staff
Healthcare organizations generally struggle with the implementation process as they lack skilled resources to drive it. That’s where an experienced ERP implementation provider comes into play. While selecting an implementation partner, make sure to check its experience implementing ERP and working with healthcare companies.
