New York’s largest health system is making a 24-month transition to Oracle HCM as part of its strategy for improving health outcomes, reducing staff turnover and saving $15 million a year.
With the healthcare industry struggling with the shift to value-based care, technological innovation, competition for caregivers and improving the patient experience amid rising medical insurance costs, Northwell Health wanted to determine its risk of sticking to its current system, PeopleSoft.
After building a business case that analyzed the value in streamlining employee data and analytics, the health system found that they were losing $15 million in annual savings every year that they delayed centralizing their data into a unified human capital management system.
The health system, which employs 66,000 workers at 23 hospitals and 650 outpatient services, turned to Deloitte for help with implementing new software, bringing in best practices and helping with change management, says Elina Petrillo, assistant vice president of HR technology at Northwell Health.
A spokeswoman for Deloitte says it is unable to comment on Northwell Health’s progress and strategy.
Petrillo says the health system chose Oracle over Infor and Workday because the Redwood, California-based software company offered the most competitive rate, streamlined modules, and the ability to collaborate on future module functionalities. Northwell Health purchased HCM, payroll, benefits, compensation, analytics, learning and Help Desk modules that will roll out over the next two years, Petrillo says.
Norwell Health also found the Oracle software to be relatively easy to implement. “Technology should not be so complicated that I need a 60-page manual,” she says.
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As the health system transitions to the Oracle HCM Cloud, Northwell Health’s HR department will be able to automate many of the functions they do manually. Also, the biggest leaps from manual to automatic functions will be in talent management, compensation and benefits, call center, and reporting and analytics, according to the company’s internal analysis.
The health system believes it can reduce 177,000 hours spent on integrations by transitioning to the Oracle HCM Cloud, says Matt Kurth, assistant vice president of organizational development at Northwell Health.
“Can we reduce the pain and the paperwork?” he asks.
Under the new system, HR executives will be tasked with rethinking how they can deliver information like upskilling, learning and development, and education benefits to employees as a retention tool.
The ability to connect with workers and have them feel valued is incredibly important in the healthcare industry, Petrillo says.
“Because we’re large, we have a really high transfer rate. Internal mobility is high,” Petrillo says. “We’d like to analyze it and say, it is healthy or not? Why are people leaving one hospital and going to another? That creates disruption as well.”
Northwell Health says it will use Oracle HCM to analyze those turnover rates, which can lose hospitals between $5.2 million to $8.1 million a year in registered nurses alone, according to the National Healthcare Retention & RN Staffing’s annual report.
The competition among New York hospitals is becoming tighter, especially as city hospitals begin stretching on to Long Island and attracting those patients.
Working at Northwell Health “has to be a differentiated experience that [employees] would not just leave for an extra dollar an hour of pay,” Petrillo says.
