Project Agile is now live! Today the switch was flipped on a new business software system that will better serve our patients and TeamUHN. This world class system powers everything from purchasing and procurement to how UHN manages its finances and supports patient care.
The new software will support UHN in being nimble in its sourcing of products and services, and allow our finance colleagues to spend more time being strategic, and less time with manual processes.
"We now have a foundation that prioritizes real-time analytics, sophisticated data collection, and modern tools that will support our scientists in their research work, our clinicians in their care of patients, and our finance teams, among others, all who help realize the many goals of our organization.” says Darlene Dasent, UHN EVP and CFO.
The bottom line is – this new system, called Ariba, modernizes UHN’s supply chain infrastructure so that we get the best possible outcome of every dollar spent.
"We are looking forward to having answers at our fingertips without having to call someone or go into a different system," says Sheryl Alexandre, Clinical Director of UHN's PMCC & Critical Care.
"Ariba is much more intuitive and mimics Amazon in many ways. The ability to make changes to requests and to track their progress will also allow our teams to better monitor and manage supplies on back order. Lastly, the promise of system generated reports in the near future is also very much needed and an exciting next step toward improving our supply chain stewardship."
Thousands of TeamUHN members - from researchers and clinical support staff to finance professionals – now have a world class business software system that will support one of UHN's key priorities, to unleash the power of technology and innovation.
A key goal of this transformation is a stable supply chain system, important to any organization, and critical to hospitals. Project Agile has realized a new and robust procurement and supply chain team, by moving from a previously outsourced model to an in-house model.
"UHN now has the ability to be more strategic when going to market to find the best outcomes for our patients and staff," says Hugh Amiel, Senior Director, Procurement and Supply Chain, and Co-Business Sponsor, Project Agile, UHN.
"We are excited to become more resilient against possible supply outages, as well as gaining more value from our partnerships."
The key to this transformation is the global gold-standard of SAP S/4HANA, an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) business software suite that allows organizations to perform transactions and analyze business data in real-time. Many of the benefits that come with this world class digital platform will support UHN's critical priorities in Research, Education and Patient Care.
"What we are doing today through our implementation of SAP Finance, Ariba guided buying and our new Procurement organization is laying the foundation for UHN to innovate and transform the way we do business," says Suranga Fernando, Executive Director, Research Finance and Business Services, and Co-Business Sponsor, Project Agile.
"Continued investments in technology will make it even easier to order goods and services and help generate savings through centralized buying, enable real-time access to data, and simplify complex business practices."
For more than a year, hundreds of people across 6 countries worked together to implement one of the biggest software transformations in Canada's Health Care sector. To keep pace with growth, and support the diversity of business functions at UHN, strategies to rapidly advance and optimize the use of SAP was prioritized as part of the UHN Finance and Supply Chain Transformation program.
"It is truly the UHN way to capitalize on a necessary upgrade, and create a system that is better, stronger, and built for the future." says Ms. Dasent.
In the lead-up to go-live the Project Agile team has worked tirelessly to prepare the system for its ultimate users. And the numbers really tell the story - more than 12 million Master Data records and more than 34 billion Data Fields were loaded into the new system.
"In my experience of doing this for some thirty-five years, I have never before seen a team that could defeat risks, deliver this kind of scope in the timeframe we had, and exceed expectations," says Barry Hudson, Executive Director, Project Agile. "it is because of this team that this project succeeded."
Thank you to all the members of TeamUHN who supported the transformation by sharing their knowledge and expertise, testing the new system at various stages, and doing the training to be ready for today.
