Acquiring a new Hospital? Here are some things you should consider…

If you are acquiring a new hospital in the near future, below are 5 things to consider:

1. Will adding the new hospital cause a difference in your GL structure?
   • Are there different management hierarchies that need to be addressed in the new departments/cost centers?
   • If you are using automated flows for approvals will the current structure work for the new location as well?
2. Localized vs. Centralized purchasing and AP
   • It is often thought that just centralizing purchasing and AP is the norm when acquiring a new hospital. This is often more difficult to achieve then it seems on paper.
   • There are item number differences – how will those be handled? Is there some normalized data in the item master that will allow for consolidating the item master? Does the new hospital provide specialty services that requires adding many more items into the item master? Who will maintain the new items?
   • There are long term contracts in place at both locations – often different prices and terms – Will these stay separate or renegotiated?
     • Different locations often have different sales reps for the same suppliers. How will these relationships be affected? And what affect will it have on the local service if the local rep is no longer involved?
3. What kind of reports are used at the new location that are not used currently in-house? Are the reports necessary? If these are not canned reports- how will the reports be created and maintained?
4. What amount of history is necessary to bring over to the new system for each module that is being transferred to your ERP? How will older data be accessed when needed?  Will the old data be available for research?