Workday Readies for System Launch
On Sept. 30, 2020, Workday made its debut at Albany Medical Center. This summer, Workday will be introduced across the System as our 15-month effort to implement an integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) process comes to fruition on July 1.
From unified requisition and billing processes to a single list of suppliers, a single item master, and centralized Procurement and Accounts Payable departments, the Workday ERP will open opportunities to share resources and allow non-clinical operations to flow seamlessly across campuses.
“There’s a lot to say about bringing a new, modern cloud-based ERP to the entire Albany Med Health System,” said Flavius Toader, vice president of Supply Chain for the Albany Med Health System. “It’s a journey that started more than a year ago and will continue through July 1 and beyond. I, for one, am certainly looking forward to working with one ERP for the entire System to bring efficiencies to our hospitals and clinics.”
When Workday first launched at Albany Medical Center in 2020, it transformed the organization’s payroll and human resources operations, bringing them into the 21st century. The system Albany Medical Center had been using, Genesys, was antiquated and as a result did not offer robust reporting. Many processes also relied heavily on paper forms that were hard to track through interoffice mail given the size of the organization.
“Albany Medical Center’s initial decision to switch to Workday was the result of a years-long journey prompted by several factors,” said Sandy Castilla, vice president of Human Resources at Albany Medical Center. “Not only was our old system sunsetting, but we received significant feedback from our own employees that they wanted something better—more transparency, easier access, automation, less paperwork. They asked and we listened.”
What Albany Medical Center began looking for was a program with a better user experience that offered greater transparency surrounding pay practices and allowed employees to see real-time data and update their own information in their own time. After assessing the organizational needs, leaders eventually decided on Workday. The project was a collaborative effort between Finance, IS, and operational leaders.
“Implementing Workday was an incredible lift,” Castilla said. “We went from paper to technology with no step in between. It was like going from a rotary phone straight to an iPhone overnight, but as big an adjustment as it was, it was a huge success thanks to the hard work of our team and the support of our workforce.”
Now, Workday will be the single source of truth for supply chain and financial operations across the System. The implementation effort began in March 2022 and will launch in July. The project has been a significant collaborative effort between Finance, Supply Chain, IT, and other operational departments throughout the System.
As with Albany Medical Center’s initial Workday launch, our System-wide Workday ERP means more transparency, greater efficiency, and better tracking and reporting capabilities. Workday will replace Lawson and BOXI at Albany Medical Center, Allscripts PPM at Glens Falls Hospital, and the supply chain and finance modules in Meditech at Columbia Memorial Health and Saratoga Hospital. Albany Medical Center will also continue to use the platform for payroll and human capital management.
Toader said that with the ERP will come centralized business management, standardized products and practices, contractual savings, lower operating costs, communication and visibility, compliance, analytics across the System. The platform will also provide us with tools for future planning, better positioning our health system to adapt to the ever-evolving health care industry.
“The last three years of the Covid-19 pandemic have challenged the health care industry worldwide,” Toader said. “Hospital supply chain has been center stage throughout the pandemic and will remain as such with the advancement in medical technology and upcoming changes of how, when, and where patient care will be delivered. Our new System ERP will position us to navigate and adapt our business model to any upcoming changes.”