Zorgkompas
Benefits for clients

On his quest to find a customer with clear views on market forces in the Healthcare market, Ordina’s Director of Sales, Leon Wijnen, met with Egbert Reijnen, the Chairman of the Board of the Leo Kanner Home, an autism centre. “Whilst I believe firmly in the principle of supply and demand in Healthcare services, market players will need to be highly adaptable to remain successful.”

Egbert Reijnen cares passionately about Healthcare, ‘because healthcare matters’. This is particularly true of autism, a disorder that has a profound impact on the lives of people with autism, as well as their families. The Leo Kanner Home seeks to emancipate people with this handicap. Asked for his views on the market forces in the Healthcare market in general, and mental health in particular, Egbert Reijnen diplomatically illuminates both sides of the coin: “There are definitely positive aspects to supply and demand. There is nothing wrong with the principle of being paid for the service you actually deliver. At the same time, there is not much scope for applying market forces to the Healthcare market. Tools like Diagnosis Treatment Combinations (DTCs) are not effective because the market is imperfect and budgets are limited. Those suffering most from the current situation are patients with complex care needs. Users of care services face another problem: there are not many options open to them. Their position is weak and there is little variation in the options offered to them. Whether the new Healthcare Institutions (Accreditation) Act is going to change this situation is pure speculation at this point.”

Innovation is critical success factor

“The most successful healthcare providers in the future will probably be those who are the most adaptable and innovative”, Leon Wijnen suggests. Reijnen agrees: “Adaptability is going to be key. You need to be inventive in order to provide care matching the patients’ actual needs, but healthcare operators seem to be spending most of their energy these days on simply surviving and increasing their market shares. Mergers are the order of the day.” Against this backdrop, examples of product innovation are scarce. In this regard, Reijnen points out the Thomas Centres, originating from one father’s single-minded campaign on behalf of his mentally handicapped child.

The Leo Kanner Home itself has opted for a franchise formula. “Which really labels you as an innovator in the Healthcare market”, Leon Wijnen insists. “As a small player, we simply had to concede,” grants Reijnen, “that we could never supply our customers with every single service they needed. Our strength lies in our high-quality products. This is why the best way of stimulating the autism care market is by passing on our expertise to others. We are the best care-provider in our area and in other regions we tell people how they can become the best in theirs. By pursuing this type of dialogue, we give people access to tomorrow’s expertise. Together, we are also able to generate more funds for research. That is what we are trying to achieve. It really is not all that novel, as it is a model commonly used in the private sector. But it works effectively.”

Breaking new ground

Leon Wijnen: “Breaking new ground inevitably means changing the way you operate. For staff, it may even mean taking on a completely different mindset. How do you go about achieving that?” Reijnen: “Staff must be encouraged to pass on their expertise to others – and in doing so create partnerships rather than rivalries. This means added responsibility, but it empowers them at the same time. As an organisation, it means that we need to devote even more time and energy to training and professional development. We want our staff to share our own aspirations. The biggest benefit is that we are able to extend our care to a wider group of children. Our staff is extremely enthusiastic about this as they are so committed to the well-being of our patients. There are almost 600 children on our waiting list; a heart-wrenching statistic. This is why we are so thrilled to be doing good things elsewhere – like the Kanner Home in Brabant, where we have been making great progress. That is what it is all about!”

All helping to steer the ship

The need to professionalise automatically implies investing in management information systems. Stakeholders need access to full and accurate information on the services delivered by care providers. In addition, the administrators and managers of healthcare providers now need to manage towards delivering better results by way of their treatments – both operationally and financially. For the Leo Kanner Home, this meant that the conventional methods of collecting management information were no longer adequate. Reijnen: “You really need to be a computer wizard to run a professional organisation these days. The problem was that the raw data was available, but we didn’t know how to structure it. The key question was: how can we develop tools that allow all our managers to help steer the ship? After all, by the time I find out that a particular department is in trouble, it is often too late. By designing an effective management information system, I can equip my managers to keep the ship on course themselves.”

And so the Leo Kanner Home knocked on Ordina’s door. “One of the things we wanted to know was whether we were not too small to make productive use of Zorgkompas. After all, this is a major investment. Three months after its implementation that was no longer an issue: the benefits gained already far outweigh the initial outlay. One of these benefits, for example, is that we are able to gain new insights on our organisation from the existing data. We know where we stand and we have a bird’s-eye view of our current situation. This allows us to take whatever action the situation calls for. Previously, we could see that certain costs were escalating, but it was difficult to trace the reason for this. That has improved dramatically.”

Leon Wijnen: “This is a market that is clearly on the move. Listening to what you are saying now, my impression is that you have got your ducks in a row. Are you still exposed to any risks?” “We are”, Reijnen concedes. “For example, the care we supply is expensive. What we need to demonstrate, is that providing an expensive, labour-intensive therapy in the early stages of treatment saves money further down the road. That is our mission: delivering a care service that is as cost-effective as possible. Unfortunately insurance companies aren’t sufficiently interested in looking further down the line at the long-term picture.”

Future-proof

So how do people with autism, the clients themselves, benefit from good management information? Reijnen: “If a department is run well clients feel the difference straightaway. This is a material benefit. An expensive system like this needs to be more than mere window dressing. It is an approach that is entirely in keeping with the spirit of our time and more importantly, it will not date. We need to be ready to process DTCs, electronic patient files, etc. This system is already saving us money. And lower costs mean better services for our patients. To be absolutely clear: I now believe that a small organisation stands to gain more from a good IT supplier than a large organisation. Our core business is and remains caring for people with autism. That is why we needed to find ourselves the best possible supplier.”

Next Chapter: Ordina supports the quest for individualised cancer treatment