Sansum Clinic’s migration to cloud kicks off second century of patient care

Santa Barbara’s Sansum Clinic marked its 100th anniversary last year, with many innovations to celebrate. For example, founder William David Sansum, a pioneering medical researcher, was the first American physician to successfully treat diabetes with artificial insulin, an effective treatment for the troublesome metabolic disease that, when left unchecked, can cause blindness, kidney failure and death.

Building on Dr. Sansum’s expertise in diabetes, his namesake clinic is still a leader in diabetes detection, management and treatment. Other innovations credited to Sansum Clinic, one of the oldest nonprofit healthcare facilities in the Golden State, include these “firsts:”

• the first kidney dialysis machine and the first kidney transplant surgery
• the first carotid and laparoscopic surgeries
• the first digital mammography
• the first after-hours urgent care

Today, Sansum Clinic operates 23 separate primary, specialty and urgent care healthcare facilities in the central California cities of Carpinteria, Goleta, Lompoc, Santa Barbara, Santa Maria and Solvang. The clinic offers a wide variety of health-and-wellness classes and activities and operates “Camp Wheez,” a creative recreation program for children with asthma staffed by volunteer clinicians each summer.

Baker Tilly and Oracle guide cloud transformation

To maintain its focus on offering patients the most personal and innovative medical care during its second century, Sansum Clinic leaders turned to Baker Tilly to orchestrate a digital transformation of its back-office operations. During the 10-month project, Baker Tilly worked closely with the Sansum team to design and implement Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud to help the clinic:

• recruit and retain top clinicians
• streamline financial processes
• reduce the cost of patient treatment
• modernize the supply chain procedures to ensure each of clinic location has reliable access to medical supplies necessary for outstanding medical care

Sansum Clinic’s digital transformation began in May 2021 and went live with Financials and Supply Chain in January 2022, followed by Core HR, Recruiting, and Benefits in March 2022. The collaborative project began with Baker Tilly’s singular “jump start” approach, designed to lay the foundation for the project and the system design based on standardization and leading practice.