HealthAlliance upgrading Auckland Health Board ERP

Work commenced in mid-November and Bruce George, GM of process and service improvement at healthAlliance, says he expects it to go live by the end of June 2012.

HealthAlliance has undertaken similar upgrades for Counties Manukau and Waitemata DHBs earlier this year, and in October completed a nine month migration project for the Northland District Health Board (NDHB) to move it from a ten year old ‘green-screen’ JD Edwards World system to the E-Business Suite.

All four DHBs will be on the same shared service system by June 2012.

According to George, having the four DHBs on the same shared service provides savings in the supply chain process. HealthAlliance estimates the NDHB alone will save $1.2 million dollars from increased efficiencies and the ability to purchase orders from a unified regional catalogue.

“There is a huge benefit from leveraging the scale of the four DHBs,” says George.

“In addition we host the same processes and systems for Taranaki DHB so in total they account for about 40 percent of the New Zealand population, which means greater buying power, greater collaboration, and greater sharing of opportunities.”

He says the NDHB project cost $720,000 plus Oracle’s license fees, and was higher than initially budgeted due to additions to the change control and management process.

“Next time we need to spend more time with staff who are involved in the processes and use of the systems,” says George.

“We need to bring the people using the systems along for the journey.”

The work on the ADHB system will require custom modules for specific needs within the region, but George says it is likely to be more straightforward as it is upgrading from the last version.

George says healthAlliance is applying the lessons learned from the other DHBs on the ADHB project.

HealthAlliance is a shared service provider in the health sector, which provides shared ICT, finance, procurement, and supply services to the Northern Region District Health Boards (Northland, Waitemata, Counties Manukau, and Auckland), which together serve over 35 percent of the New Zealand population.

The company is ranked number one in this year’s MIS 100 survey.