New York Health Network Simplifies Budgeting with Lawson Software Implementation
Lawson Budgeting & Planning 9 enables Bassett Healthcare to improve budget accuracy, automate forecasting processes while cutting time spent budgeting by up to 25 percent
ST. PAUL, Minn. (May 02, 2007) – Lawson Budgeting & Planning 9, part of the Enterprise Financial Management Suite from Lawson Software (Nasdaq:LWSN), is helping Bassett Healthcare improve decision-making and lower administrative costs by increasing the accuracy and timeliness of the organization’s budget forecasts. A Lawson customer since 1998, Bassett recently completed implementation of the application following a migration to Lawson System Foundation 9.0. Lawson Professional Services provided consulting services for the project.
Bassett Healthcare and affiliates employ 3,590 employees and comprise a regional health system of four hospitals and 24 community health centers, serving residents of an eight-county region that covers 5,000 square miles in upstate New York.
With such geographically dispersed facilities, Bassett sought an automated budgeting system that would more easily communicate with its other business applications and scale to accommodate the needs of its diverse affiliates. Bassett also wanted to consolidate its IT hardware and software platforms as it enhanced the accuracy of its budgeting process. The health network chose to replace its manual, paper-based budgeting system with Lawson Budgeting & Planning 9 because of its usability for managers and its ability to work with both Lawson and non-Lawson systems across the organization.
Lawson Budgeting & Planning 9 is designed to integrate with Bassett’s existing Lawson business systems, including the Lawson Human Capital Management, Supply Chain Management and Enterprise Financial Management suites. Based on the application’s efficiency improvements, Bassett’s finance department expects to gain up to two weeks of each eight-week budget cycle to focus on more strategic initiatives, such as budget analysis, instead of time-consuming administrative tasks.
“Lawson offers the functionality and flexible, open architecture necessary to help meet budgeting requirements critical to our success as a rural health network,” said Christopher Graham, director of finance, budget and administrative services for Bassett Healthcare. “We partnered with Lawson Professional Services on implementation because of the company’s extensive knowledge of health care financial processes and to help us take full advantage of the application’s features to optimize our forecasting processes.”
Bassett created a cross-departmental team to oversee the implementation, including representatives from its finance, human resources and materials management departments. The project team solicited ongoing feedback from end users and budget approvers, including executives, budget staff and department managers participating in Bassett’s annual budget process focus groups. This feedback then helped Bassett guide system design, configuration and deployment.
The core project team followed an implementation timeline that included several specific benchmark dates based on Bassett’s existing budget schedule. For example, one key benchmark involved completing end-user training and having the new application fully operational by Sept. 12, 2006. The application’s flexible architecture played a key role in helping Bassett achieve this goal. This flexibility helped Bassett simultaneously conduct training and make system design adjustments throughout the implementation process in response to ongoing user feedback and the organization’s evolving budgeting and reporting needs.
Since completing deployment of the new application, Bassett has seen noticeable improvements throughout its budgeting process. In the past, Bassett’s legacy system was driven solely by its finance department. Without a standardized and integrated budgeting system, employees faced inefficient, time-consuming approval processes and department-specific formatting requirements before sending final budget data to finance staff. Today, the Lawson application helps Bassett streamline this process by automating budget approvals and providing staff with accurate, up-to-date budget information across the organization. And, the application’s role-based security helps ensure that employees access just the information they need.
In addition to improved budget accuracy and reduced administrative time, the system also is helping Bassett enforce cost controls across the organization so managers can better optimize staff resources and meet profitability objectives.
Lawson System Foundation 9.0 features the latest technology from Lawson combined with other world-class technologies to provide a platform for Lawson’s next-generation applications designed for use within a service-oriented architecture (SOA). By separating the technical foundation from the application layer, Lawson enabled Bassett to upgrade its enterprise applications and technology independently.
“More efficient budgeting enables healthcare organizations to reduce administration, drive better-informed business decisions and improve margins,” said Sara Van Kempen, healthcare marketing director, Lawson Software. “Our industry-leading software and healthcare expertise help customers like Bassett simplify the business of healthcare so they can focus on enhancing patient care.”
Lawson serves more than 500 healthcare industry customers representing more than 4,500 facilities, including eight of the top 10 integrated delivery networks. The company also serves managed care systems, academic medical centers, hospitals, clinics, physician group practices, home healthcare, long-term care and other health services enterprises. Lawson solutions help healthcare organizations manage their business so they can focus on their patients, automate and streamline materials management for a better bottom line, and overcome the challenges of the labor shortage.
Source: Lawson
