Driven by great financial pressure, rehabilitation centres are without exception looking for new methods to allocate practitioners and resources as efficiently as possible. Revalidatie Friesland from Beetserzwaag developed a new planning module for this together with Revant, Tolbrug and ChipSoft. The pilot will start soon. "From a backlog, we are taking a great leap forward", expects Peter Visch, chair of the board of directors.

Peter Visch finds rehabilitation planning a complicated process every day. "If you compare planning, for example, with that of hospitals, you see that we have much more to do with multiple practitioners that must follow each other in a specific sequence. The first challenge is to guarantee the sequence, the second challenge is that the patient does not have to wait for their occupational therapist appointment for four hours after they see their physical therapist. They have to flow into one another. The patient usually would rather see the same practitioner every time. Rehabilitation planning has many limitations."

Impressive potential

"Last year, together with ChipSoft, we took an enormous step in the area of planning", says Visch. "And through it, we are moving from a backlog to a great leap forward. I am convinced of that. ChipSoft has really put the pedal to the metal with regard to planning. I have seen the algorithm and the potential of it and they are impressive. We are sitting precisely on the 'track' we are looking for. A track that results in better processes, through which we enormously increase productivity, without people having to work harder. So we are really looking forward to the pilot."

Clear co-creation

The development of the new planning module is a co-creation with clear role distribution. Visch: "ChipSoft needs us to understand daily practice, and we need their technical acumen for the right algorithm and the implementation. Ultimately, together we want to get to standard content that forces us to work in a more uniform and protocol-based manner."

Consultation with Revant and Tolbrug

Revalidatie Friesland joined from the beginning in the development of the planning module with the Revant and Tolbrug rehabilitation centres. And even Basalt and Rijndam Revalidatie, who recently chose the EPD HiX are now directly joining the development. Visch: "Even though the pilot is taking place here with us, from the first moment, the rehabilitation centres involved will take a look together and make decisions. Institutional decisions that we take here, will namely also apply soon to them. By being involved as rehabilitation centres from the beginning, we are improving the rehabilitation EPD for all of us. And with it, rehabilitation care."

Patient can schedule himself

When we deal with planning, the rehabilitation centres involved have put multiple dots on the horizon: "The first phase involves the implementation of the short term planning, with which we schedule the right practitioners at the right times, based on the specific treatment plan of the patient. On a somewhat longer term, we want to add capacity planning to get a good picture of our organization over a period of a number of months. Then, when the algorithm is really completely developed, in December we want to introduce the production agreements for the coming year, after which HiX will automatically produce an annual schedule for 80 to 90%. That will mean an amazing savings in time and costs. The last step is that we give the patients the opportunity to schedule themselves."

Helping more patients

By optimizing the planning, Visch expects to be able to help 'many more patients'. "If you see what strict planning means for the cost-benefit ratio...we have to take this step now, because as a sector we are under great financial pressure", says Visch, who admits that the doctors and practitioners are very happy about what HiX has done for them since the commissioning (7 April 2017) regarding patient files. "Logical, because they see what the previous practitioners done with the patient, that the progression of the care process runs better, that they have more insight into the process and that they can provide much more targeted therapy."

"HiX makes the quality of care demonstrably better, paired with a shorter treatment time. Everyone wants that! The planning was a hot topic, but the content of the file was never up for discussion. Regarding computerization, e-health and invoicing, we are much further along than others. Without HiX we would never have come so far. Through the new planning module, the quality can only increase."

Improvement through user groups

Together with other rehabilitation centres, Revalidatie Friesland is involved with the further development of HiX via the ChipSoft user groups. Visch: "This is the best way to develop the best EPD for our sector. In addition, I am a great promoter of the concept of 'standard content', because with that, we automatically integrate innovations with our EPD. As a rehabilitation centre, we do not have the ICT capacity in house to keep up with the developments."