Maarsingh en van Steijn has a dream - a mission. With their network for psychological expertise, they want to improve the (mental) health of citizens. They approach this innovatively, with a strong focus on prevention. In doing so, they also see an important role for healthcare data, both for the care process and for research purposes. After all, our health does not exist in a vacuum - with more information about a patient's context, healthcare professionals can help them even better.
Would you like to know more about how CareBase24, our open platform for healthcare data, supports Maarsingh en van Steijn in their mission? We talked to their CIO Bouwe Koopal.
A silo
In realising their dream, Maarsingh en van Steijn ran into the limitations of their EHR. "It was basically an ill-fitting off-the-rack suit," says Bouwe. "The support for our healthcare and business processes was very limited and the data was locked in a silo. Adjustments and integrations were laborious - it simply wasn't scalable."
It was clear: Maarsingh en van Steijn needed a new EHR that would not slow them down, but rather support them - with optimal data availability and agility.
Ambitious innovation: SICHT DATA
Bouwe himself had years of experience with software engineering, as well as with lowcode. This is how Maarsingh en van Steijn came up with the idea of building an EHR themselves: the functionality would be custom-developed based on lowcode, with all process data in a lowcode database. For this part, they choose to use the WEM.io lowcode platform. As a data foundation, they chose CareBase24 - this stores all healthcare data and demographic data according to openEHR specifications and facilitates integrations using HL7 FHIR (by means of our Router24 module).
The new EHR was named SICHT DATA. An ambitious project, you might say. Yet it actually went lightning fast. "The first Maarsingh en van Steijn companies went live on 16 September, after a project duration of about 11 months," says Bouwe.
SICHT DATA now features complete scheduling functionalities including an Outlook integration, a complete EHR, invoicing and accounts receivable management.
What they learned
All changes obviously take some time. For Maarsingh en van Steijn's employees, too, it takes some getting used to not only to the new way of working, but also to working with a fully customised EHR. "That was a bit of a shift, yes," says Bouwe. "You are used to thinking ‘Is this in the package?’, but now you have to say ‘I want to have this because this is how I want to set up my process!’ Suddenly the possibilities are endless, but you have to design it yourself. There were also quite a few unforeseen functionalities later in the process - you can't predict everything. And everything you make has to be tested thoroughly."
Plans for the future: more collaboration!
The foundation of the SICHT DATA EHR is solid as a rock. Now it is a matter of rolling out SICHT DATA to the other subsidiaries of Maarsingh en van Steijn and continuing to develop and improve. For example, CareBase24's data structure lends itself perfectly to regional collaboration by means of federation, something Maarsingh en van Steijn has been aiming for since the beginning. A regional data network! They are also exploring cooperation with initiatives such as CumuluZ and NUTS, and MITZ is being implemented for facilitating consent.
In addition, Bouwe is very enthusiastic about spreading the SICHT DATA way of working: "We are investigating whether we can make SICHT DATA available open source, for health and welfare. We would also like to share our knowledge of and experience with lowcode and openEHR. In the end, it's all about that dream: improving everyone's health. This is a wonderful way to contribute - also together with partners like CODE24!"
Wondering how your organisation can get started with CareBase24 as well? Do not hesitate to contact us!