INSELSPITAL, BERN UNIVERSITY
HOSPITAL
“The SAP business intelligence software
enabled us to leverage a backlog of
several years’ worth of extremely
valuable data. . . . We simply couldn’t
process this information before
because of the sheer volume.”
Martin Gerber, Chief Financial Officer, Inselspital,
Bern University Hospital
SAP Customer Success Story
Healthcare
SAP NetWeaver® HELPS HOSPITAL
ENSURE OPTIMUM PATIENT CARE
QUICK FACTS
Organization
• Name: Inselspital, Bern University
Hospital
• Location: Bern, Switzerland
• Industry: Healthcare
• Products and services: Healthcare services
and medical research
• Employees: 7,100
• Web site: www.insel.ch
• Implementation partner: SAP® Consulting
Challenges and Opportunities
• Keep up with the growing needs of patients
and continuous advances in medical
technology, while reducing operating costs
• Transfer resources from administrative to
healthcare-related tasks
Objectives
• Provide a cross-functional information
platform
• Deliver actionable and timely information
to all levels of the organization
• Automate reporting and controlling
• Comply with the Swiss REKOLE
accounting standards for healthcare
SAP Solution and Services
SAP NetWeaver® Business Intelligence
component
Implementation Highlight
Was 1st Swiss hospital to develop a
REKOLE-compliant accounting and reporting
system based on SAP business intelligence
software
Why SAP
• Unmatched integration and data analysis
capabilities complementing the existing
SAP environment
• Realization of an IT strategy enabling
hospital to incrementally eliminate
non-SAP software
Benefits
• Greater transparency of costs, business
processes, and medical treatments
• Faster reimbursement of insurance claims
(via accelerated reporting)
• Streamlined reporting and analysis,
assuring faster and smarter decision
making
Existing Environment
• SAP ERP application
• SAP Patient Management application
• SAP Supplier Relationship Management
and Logistics for Healthcare package
• Non-SAP software
Third-Party Integration
• Database: Oracle
• Hardware: Sun
• Operating system: Sun Solaris
Inselspital, Bern University Hospital ranks as one of the top Swiss valuable data – from the details of
medical treatments, such as materials
clinical hospitals and is the leading medical research facility in and medication used, to patient and
Switzerland. In order to keep up with the growing needs of its financial data. We simply couldn’t
process this information before be-
patients and continuous advances in medical technology, the hospital cause of the sheer volume,” explains
needed to make some internal changes. It needed to free up Gerber.
resources for healthcare-related activities and ensure transparent The need for an effective business in-
data organization-wide. The hospital opted for the SAP NetWeaver® telligence solution became even stron-
ger when the Swiss cantons and health
Business Intelligence component to do the job. Now, with a central insurance providers instituted REKOLE,
hub for collecting, analyzing, and consolidating business as well a set of standardized accounting prac-
tices designed to ensure the efficiency
as medical information, the hospital can ensure it functions optimally of healthcare providers nationwide.
while reducing operating costs. REKOLE required a radical redesign of
the hospital’s existing accounting pro-
cesses and hence the handling of data.
Ensuring the Highest Levels of bility to provide the medical and According to Gerber, Inselspital needed
Medical Care business decision makers with the a tool that would work well with its SAP
information they need to ensure we ERP application and industry-specific
“The Swiss healthcare sector is can efficiently deliver the highest-quality SAP for Healthcare solutions.
reshaping due to the introduction of care to every single patient. SAP
the diagnosis-related group system,” NetWeaver Business Intelligence is the “We chose SAP NetWeaver Business
explains Martin Gerber, chief financial technical enabler that does just that.” Intelligence because it could easily
officer at Inselspital, Bern University reside on top of our existing SAP appli-
Hospital. The system, known as DRG, Complying with External and cations, while enabling us to efficiently
is used to classify hospital cases into Internal Information Needs recombine data according to the vari-
one of 500 or more groups. “Our hos- ous internal and external information
pital needed to adopt more effective The main challenge facing Inselspital needs,” says Gerber.
IT tools to accommodate the DRG. was an inability to process a large
In addition, we were facing increasing volume of existing data. The company Pioneering the Swiss Healthcare
competition for patients and research also lacked the tools that would enable Sector
grants – we needed to standardize it to transform this data into useful
medical services and enable more information. The SAP® ERP application Inselspital is credited as the first Swiss
operational transparency.” alone held about 50 million individual hospital to comply with the REKOLE
datasets that were necessary for calcu- standards and move to a cost-unit
With a staff of more than 7,000 people, lating the hospital’s key performance accounting system based on SAP
including 1,220 physicians and medical indicators. business intelligence software. Since
researchers, Inselspital provides state- the new specifications for the Swiss
of-the-art medical care to almost a “The SAP business intelligence soft- healthcare sector had just been issued,
quarter million patients a year. As ware enabled us to leverage a backlog SAP had not yet introduced predefined
Gerber points out, “It is our responsi- of several years’ worth of extremely business content.

“Inselspital took the lead and developed
data models and business content
specifically for Switzerland, assembling
a knowledge base that could be lever-
aged by other Swiss hospitals,” com-
ments Gerber.
Oceans of Data
The implementation team kicked off the
project with a sound feasibility analysis
and extensive testing period. With
hands-on support and in-depth know-
how from members of the SAP Con-
sulting organization, Inselspital had
the software up and running in less
than a year. Gerber attributes the
“We are now able to generate ad hoc reports in hours versus several days and
standard reports in less than a minute.”
Martin Gerber, Chief Financial Officer, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital
successful implementation to strong
support from top-level managers, early
involvement of all affected departments,
and focused efforts to improve data
quality.
Soon after go-live, the hospital began
seeing benefits. “The SAP software
gave us the ability to scour our oceans
of data on a daily basis,” says Gerber,
who then adds, “Having gained new
insights into our organization, we were
confident in moving forward.” With
easy access to timely information and
tools that enable detailed cost account-
ing, decision makers can now plan
more effectively. In addition, managers
can help the hospital keep its operating
costs under control. For example,
Inselspital employees can process
insurance claims much faster now.
This enables the hospital to collect on
monies owed in a more timely fashion –
keeping preliminary financing costs in
check. Using SAP NetWeaver Busi-
ness Intelligence, Inselspital has also
been able to centralize the formerly
nonintegrated and often redundant
controlling and accounting activities
of nine departments.
In addition to tapping new informational
grounds and creating synergies, the
CFO highlights the significant reduction
in the time needed to create reports.
“We are now able to generate ad hoc
reports in hours versus several days
and standard reports in less than a
minute,” he says.
Bridging Two Worlds Together –
Healthcare and Business
While working closely with the SAP
consultants during the implementation,
the hospital began to build up its own
internal resources and knowledge base
necessary to extend its use of the SAP
business intelligence software and to
ensure continuity.
“The SAP software gave us the
ability to scour our oceans of
data on a daily basis.”
Martin Gerber, Chief Financial Officer,
Inselspital, Bern University Hospital
Gerber emphasizes that implementing
business intelligence software is not a
linear endeavor but an iterative process
that challenges the existing organiza-
tion at various levels and reveals weak
points. He explains, “In several cases
we realized that the quality of the data
we had been collecting was insufficient
for our needs. At other points we had
to reconsider some of our key perfor-
mance figures and even processes.”
Even though Inselspital spent more
than originally budgeted, Gerber
expects a payback for the overall
investment within three to four years.
A Cross-Functional Platform
So far, Inselspital has been primarily
using the SAP business intelligence
software for the hospital’s administra-
tion, financial reporting, and data
management needs.
“However,” comments Gerber, “the
SAP business intelligence software is
not just beneficial for accounting and
controlling activities. It provides a
cross-functional information platform
equally valuable to finance employees,
the HR team, health professionals, and
medical researchers.” He is convinced
that the benefits delivered through the
SAP component will increase as more
employees begin to use the software
on a regular basis.
But that might take some time. “Not
everybody is comfortable with change,”
says Gerber. “But once the employees
see the ultimate benefits, we feel they
will adopt the software more readily.”
 www.sap.com /contactsap

Complete Transparency of All

Activities and Services

Inselspital plans to fully extend the foot-

print of the SAP business intelligence
software throughout the hospital. “We
want to provide transparent information
and reporting capabilities to all areas
of our business.”

In the medium term, Gerber intends

to integrate the non-SAP legacy
applications with the SAP NetWeaver
Business Intelligence component.
Inselspital will also continue to replace
non-SAP applications with SAP soft-
ware to leverage the benefits of a
homogenous application landscape.

50 089 323 (08/05)

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