Care is key
One of the world’s largest integrated oncology care providers is reaching more people and treating them faster than ever before thanks to investments in intelligent technologies.
Designing personalised treatment for cancer patients is incredibly complex, requiring clinical excellence and a pursuit of innovation. But it’s the simple things, like streamlining day-to-day operations, that are also helping Australian company GenesisCare grow into one of the world’s largest integrated oncology care providers.
Founded in 2004, GenesisCare now has more than 440 locations across Australia, the US, UK and Spain, and serves over 400,000 patients globally. It’s committed to bringing world-class cancer care to patients in areas of high unmet need and has eight centres, as well as several government partnerships, in regional Australia. “We currently have five new centres under development in Australia alone,” says GenesisCare’s executive manager for oncology Australia, Richard Lizzio.
As it expands its services, GenesisCare is constantly looking for ways to improve patient outcomes. “We’re at the forefront of technology and precision medicine tailoring treatment to each individual patient,” says Dr Marie Burke, GenesisCare’s chief medical officer.
New treatment approaches include predictive testing, such as DCISionRT, a precision medicine test for women diagnosed with early stage breast cancer that predicts whether radiation therapy will be of additional benefit to surgery alone. Another approach, known as theranostics, is an innovative step towards personalised medicine, combining PET/CT imaging and radiopharmaceuticals to diagnose and treat prostate cancer and complex cancers.
Efficient day-to-day business operations are essential for GenesisCare to provide such individualised medical interventions. In 2018, the organisation streamlined its financial and procurement systems with the enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform SAP S/4HANA. “Prior to engaging with SAP, we had a fairly inconsistent finance operating model with lengthy wait times to produce financial results and limited visibility of our procurement expenditure,” says Lizzio. “An intelligent ERP was required as a platform for sustainable growth.”
Enhanced visibility over annual spending has resulted in 10 per cent of the organisation’s full-time equivalent employee hours being redeployed, freeing clinical staff to spend more time on patient care. Consistent tracking of clinical excellence targets, such as zero wait times, has also enabled greater transparency for investors.
“An ERP system that can be seamlessly applied across different countries is imperative to providing integrated cancer care,” says Lizzio. “This means we can continue to improve the life outcomes for many more people across the globe.”