Infor CloudSuite for Atlanta Healthcare Systems: Implementation Insights

Atlanta is one of the largest healthcare markets in the Southeast, and it is also one of the most complex when it comes to ERP modernization. With major health systems spanning hundreds of locations across metro Atlanta and into rural Georgia, the decision to move from legacy Infor Lawson to CloudSuite carries stakes that go well beyond IT. After 26 years of implementing Infor solutions for healthcare organizations—many of them headquartered right here in Georgia—I have seen firsthand what separates successful CloudSuite deployments from the ones that stall.

Atlanta's Healthcare Landscape and the ERP Challenge

Metro Atlanta is home to some of the most recognized health systems in the country. Organizations like Emory Healthcare, Piedmont Healthcare, Grady Health System, WellStar Health System, and Northside Hospital collectively operate dozens of hospitals, hundreds of outpatient facilities, and employ tens of thousands of people. Many of these organizations have relied on Infor Lawson for financials, supply chain, and human capital management for over a decade.

The challenge they all share is scale. An Atlanta-area health system with 8 to 15 hospitals, 200-plus ambulatory locations, and 15,000 to 40,000 employees is not implementing CloudSuite the same way a single-facility community hospital does. The data volumes are larger, the integration points are more numerous, the stakeholder landscape is more complex, and the margin for disruption during go-live is essentially zero. Patients do not stop arriving because your ERP is being upgraded.

Georgia's healthcare market also has unique characteristics that affect ERP implementations. The state's certificate-of-need laws, its Medicaid reimbursement structure, and the ongoing expansion of healthcare services into underserved areas south of the metro create operational complexity that the ERP system must accommodate. Organizations operating across both urban Atlanta and rural Georgia need CloudSuite configurations that handle fundamentally different cost structures, staffing models, and regulatory requirements within a single instance.

Why Atlanta Health Systems Choose CloudSuite

The business case for CloudSuite in Atlanta healthcare is driven by several factors that are particularly acute in this market:

Workforce management at scale: Atlanta health systems compete fiercely for clinical talent. CloudSuite's HCM and WFM modules give HR teams real-time visibility into staffing, scheduling, and labor costs across every facility—critical when you are managing nursing ratios across 10 hospitals simultaneously.
Supply chain consolidation: Multi-hospital systems in Atlanta have spent years consolidating purchasing through GPOs. CloudSuite's supply chain module, integrated with GHX and connected to Epic for demand signals, enables the kind of clinically integrated supply chain that actually reduces costs rather than just shifting them between departments.
Financial visibility across entities: Health systems that have grown through acquisition—which describes most large Atlanta organizations—often run fragmented financial systems. CloudSuite provides consolidated financial reporting across all entities while maintaining the entity-level detail that auditors and regulators require.
Cloud economics: Rather than maintaining on-premise Lawson infrastructure at each data center, CloudSuite shifts the infrastructure burden to Infor's AWS-based cloud. For Atlanta health systems already managing complex IT estates, this reduces operational overhead significantly.

The Epic Integration Challenge in Georgia Healthcare

Most large Atlanta health systems run Epic as their electronic health record. The Epic-to-Infor integration is arguably the most technically demanding aspect of any healthcare CloudSuite implementation, and I have written about it extensively in my technical guide to Epic-Infor integration.

What makes the Atlanta market somewhat unique is the density of Epic installations. When nearly every major system in the metro is running Epic, the integration patterns become more standardized, which is actually an advantage. Lessons learned at one Atlanta health system can be applied at another, and the local Epic consulting community understands the specific configurations common to Georgia hospitals.

Critical Integration Points:

• Supply chain: Epic preference lists driving Infor procurement workflows
• Financials: Clinical charge capture flowing into CloudSuite general ledger
• HR/Payroll: Employee records synchronized between Epic credentialing and Infor HCM
• Materials management: Par level automation between Epic inventory and Infor supply chain

The organizations that succeed with Epic-Infor integration in Atlanta are the ones that invest in architecture before they start building. I have seen health systems rush into integration development without a clear data mapping strategy and spend six months in what I call "integration whack-a-mole"—fixing one data flow only to break another. A proper integration architecture review, ideally done by someone who has built these connections before, saves months of rework.

HIPAA and Georgia-Specific Compliance Considerations

Every healthcare CloudSuite implementation must address HIPAA, but Georgia adds layers of state-specific requirements that affect how the system is configured:

Georgia Patient Access to Records Act: Impacts how patient-related financial data is stored and accessed within CloudSuite, particularly around billing disputes and payment records.
Georgia Composite Medical Board reporting: Certain HR and credentialing data flows between Infor HCM and state reporting systems must be configured to meet Georgia-specific timelines and formats.
State Medicaid (Georgia Medicaid Management Information System): Health systems with significant Medicaid populations need CloudSuite financial configurations that accommodate Georgia's specific reimbursement methodologies and reporting requirements.

Beyond regulatory compliance, Atlanta health systems must also consider data residency and disaster recovery. Organizations that serve as regional trauma centers or that participate in the Georgia Health Information Network need CloudSuite configurations that maintain availability even during major disruptions. I covered broader healthcare compliance considerations in my guide on what every CIO should know about CloudSuite for healthcare.

Lessons from Large Atlanta-Area Deployments

Over the years, I have been involved in CloudSuite and Lawson implementations at healthcare organizations in the Atlanta area ranging from 400 beds to over 1,800 beds. While I cannot name specific clients, the patterns I have seen are consistent enough to share:

Pattern 1: Phased Rollouts Work Better Than Big Bang

Every large Atlanta health system I have worked with that attempted a single go-live across all facilities and modules experienced significant problems. The organizations that phased by facility cluster or by module had dramatically smoother transitions. For a 10-hospital system, a typical successful approach is to go live with financials and supply chain first at the flagship facility, then roll out to community hospitals in waves of two to three.

Pattern 2: Data Migration Is the Hidden Risk

Atlanta health systems that have grown through acquisition often have decades of legacy data spread across multiple Lawson instances, standalone financial systems, and departmental databases. One organization I worked with had employee records in four different systems that needed to be reconciled before HCM go-live. Budget at least 25% of your implementation timeline for data migration and cleansing—it always takes longer than expected.

Pattern 3: Change Management Cannot Be an Afterthought

Healthcare workers are already stretched thin. Asking them to learn a new system while maintaining patient care requires a change management approach that respects their time and acknowledges their concerns. The most successful Atlanta implementations I have seen assigned clinical champions—respected nurses and department heads—as peer advocates who could translate the ERP change into terms their colleagues understood.

What Atlanta Healthcare Organizations Should Do Now

If your Atlanta-area health system is planning a CloudSuite migration or is mid-implementation and struggling, here is my practical advice:

Get a realistic assessment of your Lawson environment. Understand exactly what you are running, how customized it is, and what integrations exist. You cannot plan a migration without knowing your starting point.
Prioritize the Epic integration architecture. Do not treat it as a Phase 2 item. Design the Epic-Infor integration alongside your core CloudSuite configuration from day one.
Engage someone who knows both Infor and healthcare. General ERP consultants learning healthcare on your project is a recipe for problems. You need someone who understands clinical workflows, healthcare financials, and the specific Infor modules that serve this industry.
Plan for Georgia-specific requirements early. State compliance, Medicaid configurations, and local regulatory reporting should be part of your requirements gathering, not discovered during testing.
Build a phased rollout plan. Resist the temptation to go live everywhere at once. A phased approach reduces risk and gives your team time to learn from each wave.

Time Sensitivity:

With Infor Lawson v10 end of support set for December 31, 2030, Atlanta health systems still on Lawson need to begin planning now. A large healthcare CloudSuite implementation typically takes 18 to 30 months, and that timeline does not include the assessment and vendor selection phases that come before it.