UHN

University Health Network, or UHN, is consistently regarded as one of the top 5 healthcare organizations in the world, currently sitting in the #2 spot on the annual Newsweek rankings. Operating 10 hospital and care sites across Toronto, UHN delivers acute care, rehabilitation, education, and research through a highly integrated clinical network. The organization employs more than 44,000 team members, across multiple health professions, creating significant operational, financial, and compliance complexity.

As UHN continues to deliver on its promise of A Healthier World, a streamlined, digitally enabled Finance Department plays a critical role in enabling that mission. For the organization, modernizing accounts payable was not simply a back-office initiative. It was a foundational step toward strengthening control, reducing inefficiency, and ensuring more resources, time, and funding can be directed toward patient care and research excellence.

UHN began a major transformation with the implementation of SAP Cloud ERP and SAP Ariba in late 2023. While this created a strong enterprise backbone, invoice processing remained fragmented. Processes varied across the organization, manual touchpoints were common, and the accounts payable function was not operating at the same standard as the rest of the technology landscape.

Tara Letourneau-Bal, Executive Director, Client Services for Finance at UHN, joined the organization with a clear mandate to drive finance transformation. “Accounts payable was a big pain point for the organization,” she explained.

The challenge was not a lack of systems, but a lack of end-to-end automation and consistency. Without a unified invoice automation platform, finance teams were spending time on non-value-added work instead of supporting decision making, governance, and patient-focused outcomes.

Why invoice automation matters in healthcare finance

As a publicly funded healthcare organization, UHN is focused on transparency and stewardship. As a critical support function, the Finance Department leads the way in reducing inefficiencies, strengthening controls, and ensuring back-office costs are contained, so more of every funding dollar supports frontline services and research. At UHN, the connection between finance operations and patient care is explicit.

From Letourneau-Bal’s perspective, modernizing accounts payable was essential to that goal. “From a back-office support perspective, the focus is on driving value and reducing inefficiencies so that more funding can go toward patient care.”

At UHN, technology investments must demonstrate both operational excellence and cost consciousness. When the team evaluated invoice automation platforms, Basware met both tests. This framing shaped how UHN approached the selection process. The organization needed a solution that could operate at enterprise healthcare scale, integrate cleanly with SAP, and reduce manual work without compromising compliance or control.

Letourneau-Bal had prior experience with Basware in another healthcare organization and had seen its impact firsthand. That experience, combined with Basware’s long-standing focus on invoice automation, made the decision clear early in the evaluation process.

“I knew who Basware was and how long they have been in the invoice automation space,” she said. “I have seen the positive change it can make for hospitals.”

Beyond experience, UHN evaluated how well solutions could complement SAP. With SAP Cloud ERP and Ariba in place, the organization needed a best-of-breed platform to close the invoice processing gap. “We had SAP and Ariba, but there was a real gap in how we processed invoices end-to-end,” Letourneau-Bal noted. “When we looked at competitors, Basware provided the best value in driving automation with AI embedded directly into our AP processes. Automation increases, while controls and accountability remain with the finance team.”

For UHN, this is the operating model the organization is building from day one, not a future ambition.

In a publicly funded healthcare environment, every approval, payment, and exception carries compliance and reputational weight. Governed Autonomy addresses that directly: the platform acts on what it is configured to process, escalates what falls outside those parameters, and maintains a complete audit trail within controls that finance sets.

The goal is not to automate as much as possible, but to automate with enough precision that the accounts payable team can stand behind every decision it makes.

Basware’s track record as the recognized gold standard in invoice automation was a decisive factor. The platform’s organizational commitment to continuous innovation, and the direct benefits that innovation delivers to customers, aligned with UHN’s long-term vision for a finance function that keeps pace with the organization’s clinical ambitions.

Why UHN chose Basware

1. The recognized gold standard: Basware’s long track record in invoice lifecycle management and its commitment to continuous AI innovation gave UHN confidence in both the platform and the partnership for the long term.
2. Competitive on what matters most: As a publicly funded organization, UHN needed a solution that delivered operational excellence without compromising on cost. Basware was the strongest performer on both.
3. Fast, measurable time to value: Basware’s intuitive design means training is straightforward and adoption is fast, with benefits expected to reach vendors, internal partners, and the finance team quickly after go-live.

Enabling scale, control, and continuity before go-live

With a successful implementation under their belt, UHN is focused on building a stable foundation before accelerating automation.

For Letourneau-Bal, Basware represents a first major step toward a fundamentally different operating model. “Basware is our first monumental step in getting to a more automated, touchless environment,” she said. “We spend too much time today on broken processes.”

The implementation experience has reinforced that confidence. In a complex healthcare environment where change management is as critical as technology, a platform that embeds quickly and earns trust across finance teams, vendors, and internal partners accelerates the entire transformation. With Basware, UHN is building that foundation now, so that when automation scales, the organization is ready to move with it.

The long-term vision is clear. Reduce manual invoice entry, standardize processes across the enterprise, and use data and KPIs to support better financial decisions. “The goal is fewer people doing non-value-added work and more focus on decision making, supported by strong data coming from the solution,” commented Letourneau-Bal.

Laying the groundwork for long term transformation

UHN views invoice automation as a journey, not a single milestone. The organization is already balancing speed with change management, recognizing the operational realities of a healthcare environment.

“There has to be a baseline foundation for why you are doing the project,” Letourneau-Bal explained. “You have to be clear on the end goal and work backward from there.”

By selecting Basware, UHN put the right platform in place to support future optimization. The expected outcomes are not short-term wins, but sustained improvements in control, efficiency, and the ability for finance to directly support UHN’s patient care mission.