A single Administrative Accounting Information System based on the SAP ERP platform

The process of digitising Campania's healthcare can be considered officially concluded, after a long journey of approximately 8 years, with the entry of the last five out of seventeen entities into the SIAC between June 2021 to July 2022.Campania has adopted a uniform accounting system for the entire regional healthcare system , creating efficient services and rapid turnaround times.>

Operating in a context such as the healthcare sector where timely care provision is essential while simultaneously trying to streamline and control spending made it necessary for the Campania region to introduce a new centralised regional administrative accounting platform. Therefore, So.Re.Sa. S.p.A. launched a Digital Transformation process with Exprivia, aiming to create a solution that could monitor and control the expenditures of the Campania SSR.

It was a complex and rewarding process, which involved Exprivia in full synergy with So.Re.Sa. S.p.A., the Regional Company for Healthcare. The Campania Region has implemented a series of strategic actions aimed at rationalising regional healthcare expenditures, creating a Unitary Management and Accounting Information System both at the regional level relating to Centralised Healthcare Management, and at the level of individual SSR companies. Among the important results achieved is the reduction in payment times by SSR healthcare companies for supplies from pharmaceutical companies , a result that has made Campania the leader in Italy among high performing companies that have recorded an annual average of only 20 days for payment compared to the national average of 53 days.(According to the national values provided by Farmindustria on payment data for the second quarter of 2022).

The solution

To support the transformation program requested by the customer in order to eliminate the fragmentation of software, databases, suppliers and organisational models, Exprivia has created an ERP solution based on the SAP platform, introducing innovative technologies and at the same time avoiding discontinuity with legacy systems. A progressive extension of the information system to all the entities of the Healthcare Service was planned for the customer, first by creating a regional Unified Database (BDU) of the chart of accounts, suppliers and customers, drugs, medical devices and all other goods. The digitisation intervention involved 10 hospitals and 7 local healthcare authorities, in addition to So.Re.Sa. and Centralised Healthcare Management, paying particular attention to the issue of Change Management necessary to adequately support the user population during the transition to SIAC.

Results achieved

The results achieved in the Campania region saw a re-engineering of processes such as the registration of payments and the issue of orders through the Single Payment Centre, dashboards for direct invoicing, and by means of the Central Purchasing Centre, the recording of receipts and issuance of payments, active electronic invoicing, automatic acquisition of the cash journal, and management of asset purchases with the printing of inventory labels, etc. with results such as:

• Centralised management of healthcare goods purchases with a consequent reduction in costs;
• Monitoring and control of expenditures;
• Development in qualitative terms of accounting flows, of the transparency and accuracy of financial statements;
• Growth among the system operators of skills and methodologies for the production, collection and analysis of data;                                                  
• Unified management of the administrative, accounting and logistic data of 17 healthcare companies. Thanks to the web portal (SAP Fiori) , smart usability has been achieved at a regional level, benefiting over 13,000 users;
• Control of key variables at the company and regional level (requirements, consumption, debt, financial flows) in support of the SSR Monitoring Department of So.Re.Sa. and Centralised Healthcare Management (GSA);
• full interoperability with any external system, i.e. more than 50 third-party systems (healthcare, administrative, ministerial and regional) that interface with the SIAC thanks to SOA integration in web services logic (such as: Medical Records, Patient Registry, Pharmaceutical Distribution, Preparation of cancer drugs, treatment plans, personnel accounting, CUP accounting, liquidation dossier).Another important result is integration with the innovative robotic system for storing and dispensing medicines.
• Uniformity of processes, accounting structures and personal data used by SSR companies, in order to achieve certifiable financial statements.

Acknowledgements

The intense partnership that the Region has consolidated with Exprivia in recent years has made it possible to actively contribute to the digital transformation process, achieved through new information and communication technologies, which is the key factor in enabling monitoring of the logistical and administrative activity of Local Healthcare Authorities and Hospitals.