Skaggs Community Health Center, a 165-bed, not-for-profit, community-owned hospital and health center, plans to implement software to help it enhance its human resources capabilities and improve integration between financial and supply chain processes.
Skaggs CHC, which previously relied on disparate business systems to manage its administrative processes, signed an all-inclusive deal with Lawson QuickStep Healthcare of St. Paul, Minn. The hospital will gain access to Lawson's S3 Human Capital Management software, as well as the company's Enterprise Financial Management, Supply Chain Management and Business Intelligence suites.
"Our legacy systems lacked self-service capabilities to empower our employees and were cumbersome to maintain," said Crystal Stallings, chief information officer and vice president of Support Services at Skaggs CHC. "[A] unified software platform and rapid deployment approach will help us simplify business processes so our staff can devote more time to patient care."
Stallings said as the hospital and surrounding community grew, Skaggs wanted a modern IT infrastructure to support its expanding operations.
Skaggs will use the Lawson system to automate financial, materials management and workforce management processes organization-wide. For example, the supply chain management software will help the hospital minimize costs and improve employee productivity by supporting more efficient tracking of supplies and packages using bar-coding and wireless technologies.
Skaggs also plans to use the software's business intelligence piece to support organization-wide reporting and analysis, while the Human Capital Management component will enable Skaggs employees to directly access their personal information, such as vacation time and benefits status.
"Community hospitals need a comprehensive business system that's simple to deploy, use and maintain," said Stacey Hicks, healthcare marketing director at Lawson Software.
The Skaggs campus includes Skaggs Hospital, Skaggs Outpatient Center, a helicopter landing pad for air ambulance service and two medical office plazas. Skaggs also manages a variety of family medicine and specialty satellite clinics.
Lawson Software serves managed care systems, academic medical centers, hospitals, clinics, physician group practices, home healthcare, long-term care and other health services enterprises.