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Managing a dozen different departments and keeping them in sync is a challenging task for anyone running healthcare organizations. Like, that ICU sends test requests to laboratories, the prescribed meds lists go to the pharmacy, and the finance team knows what procedures to bill for. Plus, you need to constantly monitor the capacity and check how many beds are available for patients at any given moment.
ERP systems solve this problem: they keep patient data, billing, inventory, and staff management tools in one place, ready to go. In this article, we’ll explore the technical side of building an ERP, discussing key development steps, must-have features, cost, and timeline.
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🚨This article is a long read, so get comfortable or feel free to use the table of contents on the right to move between the chapters. Enjoy!
An enterprise resource planning system, or an ERP for short, is a comprehensive software that helps manage a healthcare organization. Imagine it as an overview of the hospital's day-to-day operations: you can see how many patients are currently under care, what doctors are on shift, and what drugs are in low stock.
On top of that, ERP for healthcare industry has built-in analytical tools. For example, you can see how much each shift costs you in labor or generate a report about ward efficiency.
You might’ve heard a similar-sounding term — EHR, or electronic health records. But ERP and EHR are not synonyms, and they serve different purposes within a healthcare organization.
EHRs primarily focus on managing patient data, such as visits, scheduled tests, vitals, lab reports, and insurance data. ERPs, on the other hand, manage the business operations of healthcare providers. From finance to drug inventory, supply chain, staff workload, and human resources.
EHR and ERP platforms are often used together in healthcare to provide effective, fast, and comprehensive care for all patients.
Healthcare organizations have started actively using ERP since the 1990s. Now, it’s more present than you can imagine, from large hospitals like Mayo Clinic or Mount Sinai to smaller, private practices.
According to the published report, the ERP market was recently valued at over $7.5 billion and is predicted to keep growing, as more and more providers adopt the software. Here are 4 types of healthcare organizations that benefit from ERP:
On average, hospitals have over 20 departments that need constant coordination and communication. An ERP is what brings this complex network together.
If a surgeon schedules an operation, the enterprise resource planning automatically updates the pharmacy on the required anesthesia and alerts the lab for necessary tests.
Hospital ERP software can also track bed occupancy in real time and alert staff if they can take on any new patients. On the administrative side, hospitals can use automated inventory restocking, payroll management, and detailed analytics to plan resources more effectively.
Private clinics often work with a high volume of patients but limited staff. ERP systems help them manage appointments, patient histories, billing, and insurance claims in one place.
For example, with an ERP platform, a doctor can check a patient’s entire record before they walk into the room, while reception staff handles payments and schedules follow-ups without switching systems.
In addition to that, clinics can also track which services are in demand and adjust resources accordingly. Like if cosmetic dermatology appointments spike in summer, the enterprise resource planning can help shift staff schedules to cover the demand.
ERP helps streamline the processing of the samples from test request to result delivery. When a clinic or hospital orders a test, the system logs the request, assigns it to a technician, and updates the requesting doctor when results are ready.
Also, medical ERP software can track sample storage conditions and expiration dates for reagents. It reduces the risk of mishandled samples and ensures compliance with lab standards like ISO and CLIA.
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⭐Our experience
Purrweb’s team has a plethora of experience creating software for healthcare organizations, startups, and laboratories. Biogeek is just one of the examples.
The web platform helps users store lab test results and track their health in one place. For the project, we handled UI/UX, development, and PDF parsing using ABBYY to extract and display health data from lab results. The MVP of Biogeek was released in 2022, and the client continues working with us on support and scaling up internationally. You can read the full case here.
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At pharmacies, ERP systems track stock levels, supplier orders, and prescription records. When a doctor prescribes medication, the enterprise resource planning can instantly check if it’s in stock and flag if it needs restocking. It can also monitor expiration dates to avoid dispensing outdated medicine. For chain pharmacies, the system can balance inventory across multiple locations and send a patient to another branch that is stocked.
ERP software for healthcare orgs helps with many tasks and eases the process of running a business in such a complex industry. Below are 3 ways in how medical providers can benefit from using the ERP.
Healthcare organizations deal with huge amounts of information every day: patient records, visit reports, lab results, staff schedules, and inventory levels. If this data sits in separate systems, things will get messy fast.
An ERP keeps everything in one place so doctors, nurses, lab staff, and administrators see the same up-to-date information. This means fewer mistakes, faster decisions, and no more chasing down missing files or getting outdated reports.
Need to check lab results and approve a prescription? Or to send a referral to another specialist? Instead of switching between different tools, medical staff can perform all tasks in one ERP. This saves hours of manual work for healthcare organizations and speeds up patient care.
The healthcare niche is regulated by strict rules like ISO standards, HIPAA, or GDPR. An ERP helps you stick to them. It controls who can see sensitive patient data, tracks every action in the system, and creates detailed logs. For instance, if a data leak happens, you can check who had access to the information and who viewed it last.
ERP features are tools that help manage business operations. Depending on what your particular organization needs, you can pick and choose what functionality to add.
Below, we put together a list of the 7 most popular features for healthcare ERP solutions — it’s a place to start when planning your software.
ERP for healthcare stores important information about patients like medical histories, diagnoses, prescriptions, and test results. Imagine a doctor who sees a dozen patients daily. They might not remember what medication a returning patient takes or what symptoms they had. But the doctor can open patient records and see all notes about past visits.
An enterprise resource planning system with built-in appointment scheduling helps avoid overlaps and long wait times. Patients can see the doctor’s availability in real time and book visits online. If a patient cancels later, the system will automatically open the slot for someone else and notify the clinic.
Billing in healthcare can be complicated, especially when insurance claims are involved. Healthcare ERP software can automatically generate invoices for insurance companies, link them to patient records, and track payment statuses. They can also process different payment types if the patient isn’t insured and pays in cash.
Healthcare organizations rely on consistent supply availability, such as surgical instruments, bandages, gloves, and many other things. An ERP monitors stock levels, expiration dates, and usage rates. If an item runs low, the system can automatically place an order in a supply chain or alert the responsible team.
Healthcare ERP solutions manage staff schedules, shift assignments, payroll, and certifications. This ensures the right specialists are available when needed and prevents overstaffing or understaffing. For example, if the system sees that a nurse’s license is due for renewal, it can send an alert to both the nurse and the HR department.
Healthcare providers must follow strict industry regulations, like HIPAA. ERP systems can generate compliance reports automatically, track audit trails, and store necessary documentation. This makes it easier to prepare for inspections or respond to legal requests without scrambling to collect information.
Enterprise resource planning platforms don’t just store organizational and patient data; they visualize it and identify patterns. Analytics tools can reveal trends like peak patient hours, common diagnoses, or resource shortages. By studying and using these reports, management can make more informed decisions backed by real data, not hypotheses.
Here’s a rundown of the most well-known players in the ERP market. Let’s dive in!
Epic is one of the most popular ERP systems on the market, with over 305 million patients who have an electronic record in the software. The company has a worldwide representation with offices in multiple countries: the UK, the Netherlands, Finland, Singapore, Australia, and others.
Epic offers healthcare organizations tools to schedule appointments, manage in-floor staff, view patient histories, monitor supply chains, and make referrals. The patient portal MyChart is for patients to access doctors’ notes, schedule appointments, review, and refill medications.
The Cerner healthcare ERP system is now a part of Oracle Health. The software includes a patient portal, tools for revenue cycle management, and robust clinical workflow solutions. Cerner allows healthcare organizations to fully customize the system and add on modules like Cerner RadNet for a radiology department or Cerner PathNet for laboratories.
NextGen Healthcare was founded in 1973, and like many medical management software companies, it combines both ERP and EHR. The system contains features like patient records, revenue management tools, supply chain monitoring, medical billing, and an appointment scheduler.
This company stands out because of its wide use of AI-powered integrations. eClinicalWorks uses several tools and apps based on Artificial Intelligence. For example, Sunoh converts natural language conversations between healthcare providers and patients into clinical documentation.
Kareo is an example of an ERP that caters to smaller healthcare organizations, like private practices. The platform is designed with simplicity in mind: the interface is intuitive and minimalistic, with no excessive elements, so the doctors and staff can get crucial information fast.
If you plan to develop an ERP system, sooner or later you will face an important choice: getting off-the-shelf development or opting for custom services. Here we explain the difference between the two.
Off-the-shelf ERPs are pre-built software sold by a manufacturer with a limited set of features, like patient records, billing, and scheduling. It’s like a coloring book that has predetermined illustrations but can be colored in different ways. These systems are quick to implement, but often lack flexibility.
Custom ERP solutions are built from scratch to match specific processes, integrate with existing systems, and scale with future needs. While they take longer and cost more to develop, they give providers full control over features and compliance requirements.
For the sake of transparency in the development process, we’re sharing 6 steps each ERP software undergoes to be launched.
First, we meet with a client to discuss the project idea and review the references. Then, we research the market and analyze how healthcare providers, staff, and patients will want to use the platform. This information helps us define the project scope, make a list of must-have features for the first version, and create a development roadmap.
Deliverables: Technical requirements for the platform and a development roadmap
At this stage of the healthcare ERP system development, we move to the UI/UX design. Here, the designers create user flows for each category of healthcare providers: doctors, nurses, and admins. After that, they turn this logic into colorful wireframes on Figma and finally into a clickable prototype.
Deliverables: Wireframes on Figma, a UI-kit, and brand identity
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⭐Our experience
Our team worked on UI/UX design and development of Lytic Health. It’s a web and mobile app for patients and doctors to automatically determine preliminary diagnoses and schedule appointments.
For the interface, we opt for a simple, minimalistic design. We chose a calm, natural color palette with shades of gray and blue to promote a sense of trust and create a welcoming look.
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We work on building the ERP software and adding key features, like patient data records, scheduling, billing management, inventory, and supply chain. Our team writes the code, based on the requirements and designer prototypes.
Deliverables: A fully working product ready to be launched
We perform manual and automated tests during the development of ERP software, not after. This helps us catch all bugs and errors early on and make sure that sensitive patient data is protected from the start.
Deliverables: A bug-free solution that runs smoothly
Once we finish coding and testing the software, we will prepare it for the public release. We’ll monitor user feedback and analyze the performance in the first few days to make sure everything works well.
Deliverables: The platform is available for all users
After the release, we can help release updates based on new compliance requirements, add new features, or fix bugs that appear in the healthcare ERP system. This step is fully customizable, depending on what support your particular business needs.
Deliverables: Update release, scale-up, bug fixes
The price of a healthcare ERP system can vary significantly, ranging from $60,000 to $300,000+, or more. Factors that influence cost include the size and complexity of the business, the level of customization, and the list of key features.
Here is how much an average ERP software can cost if it has the above-mentioned must-have features and serves mid- to large-sized healthcare organizations:
So, looking for a development partner to execute an ERP project? Purrweb’s team has completed over 550+ projects, including cases in the healthcare and medical industry. You can check our portfolio here.
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