Healthcare With ERPNext

Healthcare with
ERPNext
Empower Healthcare Organizations
with an Open Source Healthcare ERP
WHITE PAPER | JULY 2020
© Frappe 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Healthcare with ERPNext
Empower healthcare organizations using an open source
healthcare ERP
Executive Summary
In this document, we talk about ERPNext and how it can be a good fit to run
your Healthcare Organization. Healthcare institutions need a lot more than
just processes to map all operations digitally. These must also be
complemented with good software to have all the critical patient data on one
unified platform so that these healthcare institutions don’t have to fret for
information. The healthcare module in ERPNext contains features that are
specific to the industry. They will help in improving efficient delivery, data
transparency, and smoother operations for the healthcare institute. Along
with core ERP features like Financial Accounting and Inventory management,
we will explore how ERPNext can be used as an “All-in-one” Healthcare
solution.
Frappe Technologies Private Limited Page 1

https://erpnext.com | +91-22-48970555
Table Of Contents
Introduction 4
1. Types of Healthcare Facilities 4
1.1 Clinics and Medical Offices 4
1.2 Hospitals 4
1.3 Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Centres 5
1.4 Pharmacies 5
1.5 Laboratory Centres 5
2. Benefits 6
2.1 Single Source of Truth 6
2.2 Improved Efficiency 7
2.3 Improved Decision Making 8
2.4 Better Analysis 9
2.5 Reduced Cost 9
3. Healthcare with ERPNext 10
3.1 An Overview of Features 10
3.1.1 Patient Management 10
3.1.2 Healthcare Practitioner and Schedule Management 10
3.1.3 Medical Code Standards 11
3.1.4 Healthcare Service Units 11
3.1.5 Appointment Scheduling 12
3.1.6 Patient Encounters 12
3.1.7 Clinical Procedures 13

3.1.8 Capturing Vital Signs 14
3.1.9 Billing and Prescriptions 14
3.1.10 Patient History 15
3.2 Advanced Features 16
3.2.1 Laboratory Management 16
3.2.2 Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation 17
3.2.3 Automation 18
3.2.4 Fee Validity 18
3.2.5 Prescription and Procedure Templates 18
3.2.6 Pharmacy Management 18
3.2.7 HRMS and Payroll 19
3.2.8 Accounting 20
3.2.9 Asset Management 20
3.2.10 Serialized and Batched Inventory 21
3.3 Analytics 21
3.3 Customization 22
3.3 Why Open Source 23
4. Customer Talk 24
Conclusion 26
Credits 26
Contact 26

Introduction
ERPNext is suited to cover a large section of healthcare institutes from a
full-service facility that includes pharmacy, in-patient, and out-patient
services, laboratory, rehab, and physiotherapy services with a number of
healthcare workers, to a small clinic providing consultation or physiotherapy
services.
1. Types of Healthcare Facilities

There are various types of healthcare facilities that need to manage their
operations digitally.
1.1 Clinics and Medical Offices

A clinic is a facility for the diagnosis and treatment of outpatients. Many
patients visit clinics for regular appointments and checkups. Clinics can
provide any kind of services like veterinary, dental, o
steopathic, etc. T
hese
healthcare facilities can be a physician’s private practice, a group practice
setting, or a corporately owned clinic that might be connected to a larger
healthcare system of the hospital.
1.2 Hospitals
Hospitals are the ultimate “catch-all” facilities. Their services can vary greatly
depending on size, location, and complexity. They have not just one but
several Healthcare Service Units for different operations. M
ost hospitals have
in-patient facilities, requiring patients to stay under the supervision of
specialized healthcare professionals until discharge.

1.3 Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Centres
Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Centres deal in everything from athletic
injuries to therapies for patients with disabilities. T
here are also rehabilitation
centers where patients can receive various therapies to help restore their
abilities after an illness or injury. Physical therapy, occupational therapy, and
speech therapy are all processes that help people gain or regain skills they
need to move around, work, or speak in their everyday life.
1.4 Pharmacies
Pharmacies are now actively participating in medical care, by preparing
medicines for out-patients. Also, pharmacists play an integral role in the
collaborative approach to the health care of home care patients by promoting
the proper use of medicines. Hospital Pharmacies also maintain stocks for
medical equipment and consumables like syringes, injection doses, etc.
1.5 Laboratory Centres

A medical or clinical laboratory is a l aboratory where clinical pathology tests
are carried out on clinical specimens to obtain information about the health of
ap
atient to aid in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases. More
comprehensive services can be found in acute-care hospitals and medical
centers, where 70% of clinical decisions are based on laboratory testing.

2. Benefits
ERPNext can help healthcare organizations streamline their activities by
offering the following benefits:
2.1 Single source of truth

Not every region in the world has access to good healthcare. In many areas,
the healthcare industry is not up to date with technology in its operations and
still heavily relies on manual record-keeping practices for administrative work.
A Healthcare facility also needs to manage a number of other operations
apart from healthcare and might use different software or formats to maintain
all of them.
1. Accounting
2. Asset Management
3. HRMS and Payroll
4. Stock Management
5. Sales
6. Purchase
7. CRM
8. Project Management
9. Education Software (for Medical Universities)
10. Integrations
Administration becomes painful with the problem of investing separately on
each software and all the departments fail to run in harmony. Managing all
these operations on a unified platform ensures a single source of truth for
building an insightful database. W
hat if a single software provides you with all
of this at no extra cost? You have not wasted your time reading till here then!

2.2 Improved Efficiency
Maintaining data using a traditional system hinders the filtering, searching,
and querying capabilities, not to miss the speed of capturing data that
software can provide. Systematic collection, storage, and analysis of large
volumes of medical datasets can make medication an error-free process.
When data is maintained in spreadsheets or files, manually sharing it

becomes very tedious. Features like auto email reports, SMS alerts, email
integration, data importing, exporting to the desired format, webhooks for API
access, automatic notifications can make life easier for healthcare
administrators.
Figure 1: Searching, filtering, and sharing capabilities of ERPNext

2.3 Improved Decision Making
Most of the hospital database has become a repository of incomplete or
incorrect details due to lack of proper maintenance. This is because
healthcare practitioners don’t have direct access to the medical history of
patients or the patient’s progress reports. The treatment process is slowed
down when there are no systems in place to record and access the patient’s
data. Patient History, Patient Progress, and Patient Repository in ERPNext can
help you gain faster access to insightful information for improved decision
making.
Figure 2: Hassle of maintaining medical data on sheets

2.4 Better Analysis
Several data conventions in healthcare hinder the widespread adoption of
data visualization. When the healthcare data is split among different entities
and has different formats, building an insightful database is next to
impossible.
With healthcare dashboards and powerful reports in ERPNext, you can not
only analyze healthcare KPIs like appointment analytics, in-patient
department status, percentage distribution of lab tests, clinical procedures,
being conducted but also analyze important business KPIs via profit and loss
statements, accounts receivable and payable reports, attendance and
timesheet reports, asset lifecycle and more.
2.5 Reduced Cost

The cost crisis in healthcare is not new. There are many stakeholders who
play a key role in determining the cost of healthcare services, ranging from
device manufacturers to medical drug manufacturing companies and payers
to insurance policy providers.
Conflict is natural when so many stakeholders are involved. And developing a

consensus requires strategic planning and time. One place where you can
save your costs is by using open source software. With a wide range of
modules at no extra licensing costs, you can manage all of your operations in
one unified platform.

3. Healthcare with ERPNext
The healthcare module in ERPNext empowers any Healthcare facility to
overcome all the challenges mentioned above. It helps you manage patients,
appointments, consultations, laboratory, pharmacy, rehabilitation, and much
more. ERPNext has a comprehensive set of modules out of the box. Along
with the features for Healthcare, you can also track your accounting books,
manage appraisals, payroll, leaves, organize your inventory, manage
purchases, expenses, and much more!
3.1 An Overview of Features
3.1.1 Patient Management

Healthcare practitioners should be able to record patient registrations faster,
whilst ensuring that the quality of their services isn’t affected. ERPNext allows
you to add patients by filling just a few fields.
3.1.2 Healthcare Practitioner and Schedule Management

Healthcare Practitioners are the doctors, nurses, ward boys, lab technicians,
etc. who are serving the hospital unit in one way or another. ERPNext
Healthcare allows you to create multiple practitioners and link to a User with
appropriate Roles. You can also link a Healthcare Practitioner to an E
mployee
to track Payroll, Attendance, or other Human Resource Management
activities.

3.1.3 Medical Code Standards
Medical Coding is required in many countries for regulatory compliance and
many of the Medical Insurance companies manage eligibility and coverage
based on Medical Code Standards. ERPNext Healthcare helps encode
diagnosis and assessments recorded as part of Patient Encounters. You can
also codify Clinical Procedures.
3.1.4 Healthcare Service Units

ERPNext Healthcare helps you map your Facility Infrastructure and manage
Appointment Scheduling, Billing, etc by creating Healthcare Service Units.
These are made available for Appointment Booking or Inpatient Occupancy
and also for Billing.
Figure 3: Healthcare Service Unit Tree

3.1.5 Appointment Scheduling
ERPNext Healthcare allows you to book Patient Appointments for any date
and alert patients via Email or SMS. You can easily organize appointments for
each Practitioner based on their availability schedules.
Figure 4: Patient Appointment Calendar
3.1.6 P
atient Encounters
ERPNext Healthcare allows you to record every encounter with patients
through the Patient Encounter document. It helps you capture complaints,
diagnoses, and also prescribe lab, clinical or therapy orders from a single
document. You can also create a Patient Encounter based on a previously

booked Appointment.
Figure 5: Patient Encounter
3.1.7 Clinical Procedures

ERPNext helps you create and map Clinical Procedures for patients like
Wound Cleaning or a Cataract Surgery. The system allows you to
preconfigure Clinical Procedure Templates, so that you do not have to set the
default properties like the consumables, rates, items every time you conduct
a Clinical Procedure.

3.1.8 Capturing Vital Signs
ERPNext Healthcare helps you to capture the Vital Signs of Patients at any
point in the treatment process. All vitals information over time can be viewed
as part of the Patient History.
3.1.9 Billing and Prescriptions

Invoice your patients with clutter-free, customizable print formats. You can
also automate your daily operations like invoicing appointments, sending
Email / SMS reminders for registration, appointments, and lab test results.
Automating these mundane tasks with a system like ERPNext leaves you with
more time to invest in the work that actually needs your attention.
Figure 6: Beautiful Print Format

3.1.10 Patient History
Maintenance of accurate and complete medical records of patients is one of
the rudiments for healthcare practitioners and providers. Over and above, the
ease at which the information is accessible by a practitioner is critical in
rendering effective, high-quality care. ERPNext Healthcare helps you to draw
up the medical history of a Patient anytime by quickly searching and selecting
the Patient.
Figure 7: Patient History

3.2 Advanced Features
3.2.1 Laboratory Management
ERPNext Healthcare also allows the creation of Lab Tests automatically when
they are billed (via Sales Invoice). This along with other Laboratory
configurations can be set up in Healthcare Settings. When the results are
prepared, you can enter the details of the results in the Lab Test document.
All presets, Normal Values etc. as configured in the Lab Test Template are
made available Lab Test for easy data capture. Another critical aspect for a
Laboratory is managing collected samples and requiring to ID the sample,
print stickers, etc. This can also be handled in ERPNext.
Figure 8: Lab Test Template

3.2.2. Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation
ERPNext Healthcare can also assist you in maintaining all Physiotherapy and
Rehabilitation patient records. You can create records for the types of
exercises and therapies prescribed by your physiotherapists. You can then
create t herapy plans and track a patient’s t herapy sessions along with
handling invoicing for these sessions. You can also assess your patient’s
progress through ERPNext Healthcare. All these features lead to a robust
module for practices offering physiotherapy.
Figure 9: Exercise Type in Rehabilitation

3.2.3 Automation
There are several features you can automate via Healthcare Settings. A few
of these are autogeneration of invoices when an appointment is booked, fee
management automation, and auto-sending of SMS alerts to patients for
when their appointment booking has been confirmed and when the results of
their lab tests are ready.
3.2.4 Fee Validity

Many healthcare facilities do not charge for follow up consultations within a
time period after the first visit. You can configure the number of free
follow-ups allowed as well as the time period for free consultations in
Healthcare Settings. This will create a Fee Validity document and will be
updated with every appointment.
3.2.5 Prescription and Procedure Templates

ERPNext lets you accelerate administration by managing your laboratory,
clinical procedure, and physiotherapy operations using templates. With
templates, you don’t have to waste your valuable time filling redundant data
every single time.
3.2.6 Pharmacy Management

Set yourself free from the hassle of managing the inventory and warehouses
for your pharmacy on paper and excel sheets. Reduce your paper and ink
costs significantly by tracking your inventory in ERPNext using powerful
features l ike Quick Stock Balance and Stock Ageing Reports. You can also
make stock transfers, process billing, and payments. Barcode scanning helps
you keep track of and search for the exact drug you are looking for.

Figure 10: Items
3.2.7 HRMS and Payroll

Apart from providing efficient healthcare services for patients, the healthcare
module also addresses the thriving need of managing operations of the
healthcare practitioners on the field. The gradually increasing need for a
workforce has inspired several retired healthcare practitioners and medical
students to step up and assist. With ERPNext, you can manage the payroll,
attendance, shifts, leaves, and more for your entire medical staff.
3.2.8 Accounting
Right from recording transactions to summarizing these records to analyzing

financial reports, ERPNext has got your back. You can also automate
appointment invoicing, manage multi-currency accounting, and track revenue
according to medical departments with the help of cost centers.
Figure 11: Accounts Dashboard
3.2.9 Asset Management

The Asset module in ERPNext helps you manage the entire lifecycle of the
lifesaving healthcare equipment and machines using mechanisms for asset
maintenance, movement, depreciation, selling, purchase, and value
adjustment.

3.2.10 Serialized and Batched Inventory
You can assign a unique value like a serial number to each unit of an item.
This can help track its movement in transactions as well as monitor its
warranty and expiry information. Serial numbers are useful to track warranty.
You can group multiple units of an item and assign these groups with a
number called Batch Number. Batches can be split or moved within
warehouses. All stock transactions are then tagged with this batch number to
enable you to track it in transactions as well as monitoring expiry and quality.
3.3 Analytics
Analytics plays an important role in making data-driven decisions. ERPNext
provides you with pre-built reports like Patient Appointment Analytics, Patient
History, Lab Test Reports, and more. Apart from that, you can switch to the
report view of any document, export them to different formats in just a few
clicks. You can also create custom reports and dashboards on the fly, right
from the user interface. ERPNext is built upon the low-code Frappe
Framework that empowers you to build customizations in order to get the
reports that you need.

Figure 12: Healthcare Dashboard
3.4 Customization
If you need more than the existing features, you can create your own version
of the healthcare module in ERPNext. Create new forms, scripts, fields, and
workflows all with minimal or no coding required. Moreover, if your healthcare
facility requires some core feature changes, you can get in touch with the
Frappe team, once you’re in business with us!

3.5 Why Open Source
With the flexibility that an open source software provides backed up by a
community that will support you, there will never be a struggle for solutions.
Doctors collaborate with one another since collaboration often leads to better
solutions. The same is true for Open Source Software.

4. Customer Talk
“It was a struggle to find a good software solution to manage our 100+ bed multi-specialty
hospital. That’s when I got introduced to ERPNext Healthcare. In no time, the usability and
the close integration with the features of a full-fledged ERP really impressed us all.
Being open-source, we could host ERPNext in-house with the help of a service provider. We
started off with OP, Laboratory, Pharmacy, and are in the process of moving every other
department onto ERPNext. Eagerly waiting for upcoming updates!”
Dr. Mohammed Issak Omar, MBBS

Consulting Physician and General Manager
SSSH, Mogadishu, Somalia
www.ssshospital.so
“We are one of the leading EMR solution providers in the middle east. We get a lot of
inquiries from our clients for solutions to manage HR, Accounting, etc., and we almost
always recommend ERPNext.
I see that the vision ‘ERP for Everyone’ as the prime reason healthcare module contribution
is now available in ERPNext. This, I’m sure, will enable Healthcare Institutions across the
world to utilize the many useful features of ERPNext as well.
I’m following ERPNext from afar - hats off to you guys at ERPNext for the awesome work!”
Dr. Ahmad Al Najjar, Ph.D. CSSBB

Health Informatics Director
Sehacloud LLC, Saudi Arabia
www.sehacloud.com

“ERPNext for Healthcare is user friendly and well-streamlined with some clean workflows
easily recognizable by healthcare professionals. Open source and backed by a strong
community, this indeed is a very promising and well-structured solution ready for
implementation.
I’m glad I could share some of my domain knowledge to the developers. I wish the ERPNext
team and community all the best!”
Dr. Bholah Amal, MBBS

Founder & CEO
Smart Health Limited, Mauritius
www.smarthealth.mu
“We operate a chain of Ayurveda rejuvenation clinics in Goa, and our international
customers book appointments in advance for every season. It has been real chaos
managing thousands of appointments and assigning therapists.
With ERPNext Healthcare we are now powered to manage any number of consultations as
well as therapy/yoga appointments! Managing Stock at each clinic and Billing is already a
big plus for us, we are now exploring other features like leaves, payroll, etc.
Thanks to ERPNext, I’m now confident we can now think of growing the number of our
clinics without worry!”
Dr. Rohit R. Borcar, BAMS

Ayurveda Goa, www.ayurvedagoa.org

Conclusion
Credits
The Healthcare domain in ERPNext is a community-contributed module
initiated by Earthians which was further enhanced and now maintained by
Frappe.
This document is based on experience by the team at Frappe Technologies

which has performed and overseen over 850 ERPNext implementations
across the span of 10 years. We would like to acknowledge the hundreds of
companies that chose Frappe to kickstart their ERPNext implementation.
Author: Rucha Mahabal
Contact
For further information, connect to the Frappe Technologies team at

[email protected] or +91-22-48970555.
Frappe Technologies Private Limited,

D/324, Neelkanth Business Park,
Vidyavihar (W)
Mumbai 400086


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WHITE PAPER | JULY 2020

© Frappe 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Frappe Technologies Private Limited Page 1

1. Types of Healthcare Facilities 4

1.1 Clinics and Medical Offices 4

1.3 Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Centres 5

1.5 Laboratory Centres 5

2.1 Single Source of Truth 6

2.2 Improved Efficiency 7

2.3 Improved Decision Making 8

2.4 Better Analysis 9

2.5 Reduced Cost 9

3​. ​Healthcare with ERPNext 10

3.1 An Overview of Features 10

3.1.1 Patient Management 10

3.1.2 Healthcare Practitioner and Schedule​ Management 10

3.1.3 Medical Code Standards 11

3.1.4 Healthcare Service Units 11

3.1.5 Appointment Scheduling 12

3.1.6 Patient Encounters 12

3.1.7 Clinical Procedures 13

Frappe Technologies Private Limited Page 2

3.1.9 Billing and Prescriptions 14

3.1.10 Patient History 15

3.2 Advanced Features 16

3.2.1 Laboratory Management 16

3.2.2 Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation 17

3.2.4 Fee Validity 18

3.2.5 Prescription and Procedure Templates 18

3.2.6 Pharmacy Management 18

3.2.7 HRMS and Payroll 19

3.2.9 Asset Management 20

3.2.10 Serialized and Batched Inventory 21

3.3 Why Open Source 23

Frappe Technologies Private Limited Page 3

1. Types of Healthcare Facilities

1.1 Clinics and Medical Offices

Frappe Technologies Private Limited Page 4

1.5 Laboratory Centres

Frappe Technologies Private Limited Page 5

2.1 Single source of truth

Frappe Technologies Private Limited Page 6

When data is maintained in spreadsheets or files, manually sharing it

Figure 1: Searching, filtering, and sharing capabilities of ERPNext

Figure 2: Hassle of maintaining medical data on sheets

Frappe Technologies Private Limited Page 8

2.5 Reduced Cost

Conflict is natural when so many stakeholders are involved. And developing a

Frappe Technologies Private Limited Page 9

3.1 An Overview of Features

3.1.1 Patient Management

3.1.2 Healthcare Practitioner and Schedule Management

Frappe Technologies Private Limited Page 10

3.1.4 Healthcare Service Units

Figure 3: Healthcare Service Unit Tree

Frappe Technologies Private Limited Page 11

Figure 4: Patient Appointment Calendar

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3. Healthcare with ERPNext 10

3.1.2 Healthcare Practitioner and Schedule Management 10