Restructuring patient flow logistics at GGZ inGeest

This digitization project shortens waiting lists, reduces admin and improves communication at GGZ InGeest

Growing waiting lists for mental healthcare are a concerning issue in the Netherlands. Clients often have to wait months before they can be treated. Mental healthcare facility GGZ inGeest is also struggling with this challenge. To help patients faster and more efficiently, the facility decided to fully digitize its patient flow logistics with Mendix low-code and Robotic Process Automation (RPA). The Mendix low-code applications are built by Bizzomate. RPA supplier Tacstone Technology reduces the administrative burden by automating part of the manual tasks of the staff. The first part of the process, an application to digitise the intake process of new clients, is now operational.

About GGZ inGeest

GGZ inGeest is a medium-sized institution for mental health care in the Amsterdam and Kennemerland region. The institution has various clinics and provides outpatient care to people with mental issues. The institution employs about 1800 people, both practitioners and support staff.

Clients who register at one of the branches of GGZ inGeest need proper treatment quickly and efficiently. Their patient data need to be entered and their symptoms need to be interpreted correctly. Subsequently, it is important that the right practitioner is found and appointments are scheduled between client and practitioner.

Until recently these processes were barely supported by automation resulting in a lot of error-prone manual input work in various systems. As a result, it took a lot of emails and phone calls to get patients to the right place for treatment, a very time-consuming process. It also made it hard for GGZ inGeest to comply with the Treek-standard, a set of criteria developed by Dutch insurers for waiting times in the healthcare industry.

Digitization central part of the improvement plan

In response to this situation, GGZ inGeest drew up an improvement plan aiming to operate more efficiently and shorten waiting times for patients. An important aspect of this plan was digitizing the patient flow logistics of the institution. Robotization and automation were important strategic pillars in this strategy.

GGZ inGeest selected UiPath for robotization and Mendix low-code for application development. Both solutions can quickly be adapted, making it easy to respond to changing legislation and organizational changes. GGZ inGeest selected Bizzomate and Tacstone to build applications with low-code and UiPath.

Klaas Nieuwhof, ICT director of GGZ inGeest: “Digitization plays a key role in the strategy that we will be executing within our institution over the next two years. By investing in back-office applications, we create the ideal preconditions to significantly reduce patient lead times and increase efficiency within our organization in the years to come. We selected Bizzomate and Tacstone Technology because they have the technology, expertise and experience to support our digitization journey from start to finish.”

Service design workshops

Bizzomate and Tacstone Technology started the digitization process by mapping all systems and tools in the institution. In addition, they analyzed where the pain points and bottlenecks were and looked at how they could best support work processes.

The next step for Bizzomate was to digitize the intake process for new patients. The first application serves to support the treatment process of patients. It safeguards  patient flow logistics and introduces task-oriented working giving the institution a clear idea of where patients are in their treatment process.

Staff closely involved in the development of the applications

By using the Mendix low-code platform, the first version of the application was operational within three months. The application will initially be used by 150 support staff and in the future by around 850 practitioners.  

The support staff is enthusiastic about the first version of the application. Bizzomate’s agile approach ensures that they are closely involved in the development of the app. The staff gets the opportunity to organise their work processes differently and make long-desired improvements in informing referrers and clients.

Moreover, the application integrates seamlessly with inGeest‘s current application landscape, such as e-mail, the Electronic Client File (ECD) and the General Data Management Code (AGB) register. Employees can deal with referrals from one central environment now and collaborate more efficiently and task-oriented across the various locations. They also have better insights into the preferred communication channels of patients.

RPA supplier Tacstone Technology is engaged in the first phase of automating the registration of patients in the ECD. Mark de Poorter, partner at Tacstone Technology: “Automating the registration process contributes majorly to reducing the administrative burden for employees of GGZ inGeest. Fewer mistakes are made when registering patients and the institution can get more work done with the same staffing. That gives them the opportunity to focus more on their core responsibility: providing the best mental health care.”

Joppe van Gisbergen, partner at Bizzomate: “It takes vigour and vision not to opt for an industry-specific software solution in a traditional environment such as healthcare, but for a flexible custom-made solution based on Mendix low-code and RPA. We are looking forward to continuing this challenging process together with the team of GGZ inGeest. We are convinced that with our knowledge of digitizing and optimizing business processes, we will have a major impact on improving patient flow logistics of GGZ inGeest in the upcoming two years.”

Nieuwhof adds: “Thanks to Bizzomate’s thorough approach in the preliminary phase, we already have a much better idea of how we can further optimize our work processes. Together we have formulated a number of important objectives, including providing better information for our patients and practitioners, getting patients to the right practitioners more quickly, reducing the administrative burden and cost savings. With Bizzomate and Tacstone on board, I am confident that we will eventually achieve all these goals. We’ve already made a great start with the digitization of the intake process for patients.”

Make your own arrangements in the future

The next step in the digitization process will be a planning application that provides more insights into the available treatment capacity making it easier to use the valuable time of practitioners more efficiently.

By providing patients with insight into the availability of practitioners, patients will be enabled to schedule appointments with a practitioner themselves. The Mendix platform is very suitable for achieving these objectives as well.