Modernizing HR for growth: UT San Antonio’s Oracle HCM Cloud journey

In a recent OHUG webinar, leaders from UT Health San Antonio, including Ernest Vasquez, Assistant Vice President for HR Operations and HRIS; Charles Phillips, Manager Application Systems Analysis and Programming; and Michael Fox, Senior Manager for Clinical Health IT Support, along with Baker Tilly’s Jeff Haynes, Director, and Scott Winter, Director, shared how the organization approached its transition from PeopleSoft to Oracle HCM Cloud. The discussion gave a practical overview of what it takes to modernize HR and payroll in a large, complex environment while balancing operational demands, competing priorities and long-standing processes. 

Why UT Health San Antonio made the move 

UT Health San Antonio is part of the University of Texas System and serves a broad mission across education, clinical care, research and community service. The institution had also been expanding its clinical footprint for years. In addition to opening its first specialty and research hospital, it launched an outpatient surgery center in San Antonio. It recently merged with the University of Texas San Antonio in a move that created the third-largest research university in Texas and dramatically expanded the institution’s scale. 

UT Health San Antonio had been operating on PeopleSoft HCM for more than 20 years. During that time, the organization grew significantly, culminating in the launch of its first hospital. The hospital introduced a completely different workforce model. While the institution already supported clinicians and clinics across the city, a hospital environment required 24/7 operations, different staffing expectations and more complex workforce needs. 

That shift exposed the limitations of the legacy PeopleSoft environment. At the same time, the institution was dealing with other realities like aging, burdensome customizations, uneven documentation and the retirement of employees who held critical historical knowledge about how the system worked.  

The move to Oracle HCM Cloud from PeopleSoft was ultimately driven by several principles: