Now more than ever, it’s important to become better educated on health IT policy.  Lawson is proud to be a partner in National Health IT Week, joining health IT stakeholders from across the nation that will participate in National Health IT Week, September 12-16, 2011.

With adequate knowledge and the right resources, we can work together to verbalize one voice with one vision: bettering our healthcare system through the use of health information technology.

This month at AHRMM, I attended a session presented by Phil Pettigrew, Director Materials Management, and Stewart Layhe, Supply Chain Project Manager, at Denver Health, where they presented a new twist on the use of these metrics – the ‘Perfect Department’.  As they pointed out at the start of their presentation, you could be very efficient in sending out your purchase orders, but, inefficient in your supply chain processes within the departments that originate the orders. Hence the need for the Perfect Department.

Denver Health began their journey to the Perfect Department over a year ago with an initiative to examine and redefine the supply chain processes first in their Paramedic and then Laboratory departments.  With a strong commitment to lean principles, they leveraged lean techniques to examine those processes within these departments and redesign them.  Out of this work, they came up with a ‘checklist’* for a Perfect Department:

• Correct items on the shelf in a neat and organized manner
• Correct quantity based on usage
• Electronic requisition system for replenishment
• Items obtained from a local source (this definition includes Central Supply)
• Correct person managing the replenishment process
• Automated PO, ASN, invoice and EFT for all orders
• Immediate 3-way match of all invoices

As they move forward to roll this out across all departments, they’ve come up with a set of measures that roll into a target Perfect Department Index. These measures* are:

• % of items with optimized inventory levels
• % of requisition lines created electronically
• % of order lines from a local source
• % of lines delivered on time, complete & undamaged
• % of purchase order lines transmitted electronically
• % of lines invoiced at the correct price
• % of electronic invoices
• % of suppliers using E.F.T.
• % paid on time and complete

Unlike the Perfect Order, which requires data that is sometimes difficult to track and report on, the Perfect Department Index leverages measures that typically can be pulled from an ERP system like Lawson into an analytical or BI tool.   In addition, many of the changes required to improve department performance are within the control of your own supply chain staff, allowing rapid progress.

How are you doing in your journey to achieving the Perfect Department or the Perfect Order? How does your organizations efforts match with Denver Health’s?  Are there different measures you use within your hospital?

*Source:  Moving Beyond The Perfect Order: Attaining The Perfect Department, Phil Pettigrew and Stewart Layhe, Denver Health, presented at AHRMM11.

Sandlot has been a Lawson Hosted HIE customer since 2005. Their leadership in the HIE space is a testimony to our strong partnership and is an example of true win-win collaboration.   Although Lawson was not named in this report, as product management director, I am honored to be a part of the Lawson Healthcare team that helped Sandlot achieve this recognition.

We have hosted our HIE for over 10 years and the integration technology powering our HIE and Cloverleaf has been around since 1995. We would not still be around if we didn’t know what we were doing. Many of us have been working together for over a decade. Because of our experience, I would like to think that Lawson is playing key part to Sandlot’s success in a very volatile HIE market.  Although there are many competitors in this space, this recognition demonstrates our value in making our partners like Sandlot and their customers stronger.

There are 3 areas where the WellStar team truly excels that make it a well-deserved winner of this recognition.

1. Direct alignment with clinical specialties
2. Cost reduction with patient focus
3. Wholistic view of supply chain with strong leadership

Congratulations Tony, Ken, Neal, Lynn, June, Tim, Linda, Marie, Daniel, Ellen(s), Paula, Mary, and the rest of the team at WellStar!

Did you know that “[o]rganizations with multi-tier HR service delivery spend an average of 20% less per employee for HR Service Delivery; high performers up to 50% less”?*  That’s real bottom line impact.

Interested in learning more? Sign up for a webinar introduction to Lawson HR Shared Services, on Wednesday, August 17, starting at 11 am Central/12 pm Eastern.

* From Gartner Group’s “Leverage a Multitier HR Service Delivery Model to Improve Efficiency” – October 2008

Infor is a highly product-driven organization, and they have made huge investments in engineering. Since the acquisition concluded, the product and engineering teams from both organizations have been rapidly aligning and converging product and technology roadmaps, and you can expect to see numerous compelling announcements over the coming months.

And it begins with a major “bang”, the announcement of Infor10 – a major new class of game-changing enterprise software technologies. Not only are the products technically superior, the applications are very cool and the entire stack is engineered for speed. You must check out Infor10.

Please go to our Facebook page to hear for yourself why Infor10 is something you need to know about. When you do, I expect you will grin, too.

If you are in the area and attending the conference, please stop by to see us! Complete a short survey and spin our prize wheel for a chance to win a $100 Visa gift card, $250 Coach gift card, and many other prizes.

We’ll also have a number of one-on-one demos for some of our top solution offerings:

• Lawson Supply Chain Management
• Lawson Analytics for Healthcare
• Lawson Business Intelligence
• Lawson Cloverleaf Integration Suite
• Lawson Contract Management
• Lawson Mobile Supply Chain Management
• Lawson Point of Use

If you’re planning to attend, pre-schedule a demo with us, and we’ll give you a $25 American Express gift card for your time.

We can’t wait to see you in Boston!

Lawson Mobile solutions are designed to:

• Deliver powerful back office functionality for a mobile device screen format
• Empower users to efficiently conduct business on the go 24/7
• Enable users to take advantage of consumer devices:
• iPhone, iPad, Android, Android Tablets

It’s also necessary to offer these apps through the most popular channels. You can find Lawson Software apps on the Apple App Store and Google Android Market by searching for the keyword “lawson.”

So, what are some of the offerings?

• Mobile Requisitions
• Mobile Employee
• Mobile Inbasket
• Cloverleaf Global Monitor Mobile

If you’re a Lawson customer and looking for more information on these mobile solutions, attend our webinar on August 4. Register for the webinar today.

Take a couple of minutes to watch Robin Ratchford, executive vice president for enterprise application services, chat about how Bon Secours uses Lawson solutions in their health system to help Bon Secours improve business operations, giving them more time and money to focus on patient care:

Watch David Noll and Carol Fitzgerald-Tyler, from Stanford Hospital & Clinics, discuss the impact of Lawson Healthcare solutions on their business operations: