SAP and LSI Consulting Help Small and Midsize Healthcare Providers Offer Improved Services at Lower Cost

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa., July 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The need for efficient operations in the healthcare provider industry is not isolated to large health systems and hospital chains. Smaller and midsize healthcare provider organizations are also under pressure to continually become more efficient while at the same time offering high-quality care. SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) together with LSI Consulting today announced the availability of a healthcare-based solution that leverages the power of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) application SAP® ERP and SAP® Best Practices packages for small to midsize hospitals in the U.S. market.

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The industries team at SAP worked closely with LSI to examine the methods and processes of previous successful SAP integrations at larger medical centers, including those connected to higher-learning institutions running SAP technologies. The team then aggregated the best practices identified to build the solution, which will be offered via both the traditional on-premise and convenient on-demand models. The software is designed for hospitals and medical centers in the small to midsize segment, defined as offering 400 beds or fewer, that will use it to achieve similar business value in a shorter time period and at a lower cost point than their larger counterparts.

As a trusted healthcare consultancy and implementation firm, LSI recognized the need for sophisticated technology in these smaller, typically community-based centers. But with limited budgets and resources, small to midsize hospitals need assistance in securing an accelerated time to business value from their IT implementations, with flexible deployment options, without sacrificing quality or a customer-focused approach. The new solution was thus developed using the lessons learned from multiple on-time, on-budget implementations performed by LSI. The result is a portfolio of pre-packaged templates and accelerators that enable repeatable success through proven solutions that engineer most of the time-intensive decisions out of the implementation process.

"Due to our long history of providing SAP solutions to large healthcare service organizations, we are in a unique position to identify and gather the best practices for implementation across an organization's core business processes," said Steve Roach, director of Healthcare Solutions at LSI Consulting. "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."

Various Deployment Models Offer Flexibility in Delivery

As a result of the growing popularity and relevance of various hosting methods, the new solution, which can be purchased through LSI, will be offered through both an on-premise and on-demand model. A hosted model is already available, allowing for the solution itself to be managed, monitored and maintained by SAP experts in world-class hosted data centers. This option cuts down on the need for IT professionals to maintain the system on site, reducing the capital expense burden that can prevent smaller organizations from benefiting from industry-leading technology. Licensing for a subscription-based model will become available in coming months.

"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," said John Papandrea, senior vice president, Global Health Sciences Sector, SAP. "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."

About LSI Consulting

Dedicated to the US Healthcare, Higher Education and Research and Public Sector markets, LSI empowers organizations to maximize service, revenue, ROI and supply chain visibility for our clients. With over a decade of experience as an SAP implementer, its mission is to help optimize our clients' business operations to drive achievement of strategic organizational and public objectives. LSI's comprehensive offering of full lifecycle services includes preconfigured solutions for accelerated SAP Healthcare, Higher Education, Research and Local Government implementations. To learn more, visit http://www.lsiconsulting.com.

Labyrinth Solutions, Inc., LSI Consulting, HealthOne, CampusOne and GovOne and the LSI logo are registered or unregistered trademarks of Labyrinth Solutions, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. SAP, SAPPHIRE, mySAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world.

About SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 97,000 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol "SAP." For more information, visit www.sap.com.

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, and related applications.

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SOURCE SAP AG