GGZ Westelijk Noord-Brabant digitalises to support staff
A good 4 in 10 Dutch people have to deal with mental problems at some time in their lives. The government wants to offer suitable help to people with mental health issues through their family doctor, baseline or specialist mental healthcare. GGZ Westelijk Noord-Brabant offers baseline and specialist mental healthcare. Every year, customers of all ages rely on their help to prevent, treat and recover from their mental vulnerabilities.
Hybrid working
GGZ Westelijk Noord-Brabant (GGZ WNB) has several outpatient locations in the West Brabant region. There are also clinics in Bergen Op Zoom, Roosendaal and Landgoed Vrederust in Halsteren. Over 1,100 staff put their hearts and souls into helping their customers both at the clinic and as outpatients. They rely on their digital workplace and the digital patient file both in the office and on the road. GGZ WNB has deliberately chosen to digitise further so that it can support its staff better.
Delving deep as the basis for working together
Quirijn Lok has been the executive director of GGZ Westelijk Noord-Brabant (WNB) since April 2022. Quirijn says: “GGZ WNB and SLTN came together because we had a contract that was coming to an end. In that process, we decided to ask for information from a number of parties, based on our purchasing policy. SLTN ended up scoring very highly. Partly because SLTN had helped us delve deeper in a number of ways. How were we going to embark on this process together? And how would we continue?”
Space for dialogue
Chris Liebregts, the Sector Director for Healthcare at SLTN, adds: “What stood out for me in that process is that it wasn’t just an exercise on paper. A lot of space was created for dialogue. This kind of process takes time and energy, but ultimately it has delivered a choice in which both parties got to know each other well before their upcoming cooperation.”
Healthcare under pressure
“We all know that healthcare is under pressure”, says Quirijn Lok. “We can also see that the employment market is problematic. This means that you have to make choices about how to further digitise your organisation, so that the people you have can focus on giving primary care. We are going to work a lot more together on further automating and digitising so that we can allocate the limited staff we do have to the tasks we really want them to do.”
Digital workplace is crucial
Quirijn: “The step towards a new digital workplace, and subsequently a new Electronic Client Dossier (ECD), is crucial to us. That is also because it really means our staff will be fully equipped on the road with a mobile application, a mobile workplace, which enables them to do their work anytime and anywhere. We really want to take that step together too.”
Digital roadmap
“If you look at the digital roadmap of this”, continues Chris, “you will see that when GGZ WNB made its choice of EPD, we worked in parallel to introduce a social intranet, which will serve as the front end for all staff. They can also see the identity of the GGZ WNB there, connect with each other and communicate among themselves. That makes it very pleasant and simple for staff to work anywhere they want.”
Full-service provider
Quirijn concludes: “We really see full-service provider SLTN as a partner. We are delighted with how the implementation process went and also with how the service is going. Is everything running flawlessly? No. Of course not. What matters, which is really how you can see there is a partnership, is how you solve things together. And that you really are in this together. That is the value we were looking for, and we are extremely satisfied with the results.”