Hospitals Leverage Workforce Data to Drive Strategic Growth

Integrating ERP and HCM systems gives organizations a competitive edge through enhanced workforce insights and planning

Published on Feb. 25, 2026

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Hospitals and health systems are increasingly augmenting enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems with human capital management (HCM) solutions to gain deeper insights into their workforce and drive strategic growth. By integrating these systems, organizations can achieve benefits like enhanced benchmarking capabilities, improved data integrity, and nimbler decision-making. Leaders from The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Henry Ford Health, and Rush University System for Health share lessons learned and the future potential of ERP-HCM integration.

Why it matters

As hospitals and health systems focus on strategic growth through new and expanded clinical services, managing the associated labor costs is crucial. Integrating ERP and HCM systems provides the data-driven insights needed to ensure the right staffing levels and skill mix, avoid burnout, and make informed business decisions - all while supporting organizational goals and financial performance.

The details

Hospitals are leveraging HCM solutions that combine workforce management functionalities like scheduling and time collection to gain deeper insight into productivity, including use of overtime hours and shift workers. This creates transparency across the organization and enables more precise staffing deployment. However, many organizations still face challenges from using disparate HCM and workforce management systems, leading to multiple sources of truth, manual calculations, and difficulties extracting essential information. Leading organizations are exploring the use of a modern, full-suite, AI-powered HCM solution to meet the industry's complex workforce management needs.

  • The Johns Hopkins Hospital's multi-year ERP-HCM integration journey is tentatively set to conclude in 2027.
  • Henry Ford Health is planning to deploy a mobile scheduling app connected to its workforce management platform later this year.
  • Rush University System for Health is amid an ERP implementation that will integrate ERP and HCM capabilities.

The players

Katina Williams

Vice president of finance and CFO at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

Robin Damschroder

President, value-based enterprise, and CFO for Henry Ford Health in Detroit.

Kirsten Largent

CFO of OSF HealthCare in Peoria, Illinois.

B.J. Krech

Associate vice president, talent strategy, human resources for Rush University System for Health.

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What they’re saying

“Growing doesn't always mean that incrementally more resources are needed. It could mean you redeploy people or that you work differently. We have a fiscal responsibility to make sure we're working efficiently.”

— Katina Williams, Vice president of finance and CFO (HFMA)

“Everybody gets focused on the timekeeping aspects of scheduling, because that's how people get paid. But really, when you think about managing your workforce and the total cost of labor — which, for us, comprises 50% of our total expenses, taking into account those we employ and those who work for us on outsourced arrangements — the planning aspect is really important.”

— Robin Damschroder, President, value-based enterprise, and CFO (HFMA)

“I've been spending a lot of time partnering with our human resources and clinical teams on different staffing models and thinking about, 'How can we redesign our benefit program for recruitment and retention to try to address some of those staffing challenges that we've been experiencing?' Labor management is probably not new to the CFO, but it certainly becomes more important as our staffing challenges have been more enhanced.”

— Kirsten Largent, CFO (HFMA)

“The more precise we can be in determining where our vacancies are and where our needs will be, the more effective we can be in deploying our staff, whether that be on a permanent basis, on a per diem basis or on a temporary basis. Leveraging technology enables us to deliver on our workforce strategy to be efficient and precise — not overstaffed or understaffed. It also allows us to create more flexibility for staff, increasing their engagement and productivity.”

— B.J. Krech, Associate vice president, talent strategy, human resources (HFMA)

What’s next

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The takeaway

Integrating ERP and HCM systems gives hospitals and health systems a competitive advantage by creating a complete organizational platform that strengthens business operations and workforce management through enhanced data-driven insights and planning capabilities.