Cloud Technology Helps Medical School Run Its Operations and Finances, Better

Adaptive Planning, a provider of announced that The University of Central Florida (UCF) College of Medicine, has successfully automated its budgeting, planning and reporting process using the company’s cloud-based corporate performance management (CPM) solutions, according to a company press release at tmcnet.com.

UCF College of Medicine is a new medical institution established in 2006 to increase opportunities for medical education in Florida.

Cloud-based computing is the ability to connect and share data over the Interne, according to pcmag.com. CPM solutions include managing an organization's performance, according to key performance indicators such as revenue, return on investment, overhead, and operational costs, according to searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com.

In the past, the finance team at UCF College of Medicine found it difficult to manage its budget revisions, and to measure the work of the individual operating departments, validate formulas, or track personnel costs, according to the press release.

“One of the first projects I embarked on when I joined the finance team was to develop a budget to actual comparison. This was very difficult because the line items did not match the general ledger codes, requiring an enormous amount of manual effort,” said Steven Omli, director of finance, UCF College of Medicine, in the press release. “I knew there were solutions out there that could automate this effort. Adaptive Planning stood out unanimously among the review committee because it was intuitive and had a rich feature set. The Software as a Service model made sense, and we could get up and running quickly without burdening our IT department – which had significant demands to support the education program.”

Now budget contributors at UCF College of Medicine have improved access to key financial information and better yet, are always working with the current numbers, according to the press release.  Omli said that Adaptive Planning’s solution allows the medical school to budget to actual comparisons and lets the finance team run “financial operating reports with personnel, salary and benefits details in a matter of minutes compared to the old, manual process which could take days,” according to the company’s press release.

“Adaptive Planning has made a huge difference for the UCF College of Medicine, to develop the budget and conduct reporting,” said Omli. “We have many different funding streams including state support, research grants, clinical services, and foundation gifts, which were very difficult to consolidate into a unified plan. Now with Adaptive Planning, it is easy to consolidate and report on this information. The satisfaction level of the executive team has increased substantially as a result of improved reporting and what-if analysis.”

Deborah DiSesa Hirsch is an award-winning health and technology writer who has worked for newspapers, magazines and IBM (News - Alert) in her 20-year career. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.