Inkendaal Hospital Implements Smart Registration System with SharePoint 2010

A large number of patients at Inkendaal Hospital are treated under RIZIV (National Institute for Sickness and Disability Insurance) conventions. Those conventions require extra data registration for every treatment. Much of this information is also stored in the hospital information system and is crucial for all communication with government authorities. Hence the idea came up of linking this to a new registration system in SharePoint. In this way, the hospital can avoid double data entry and the errors that this may entail. Ferranti presented the latest version of SharePoint with all its possibilities to Inkendaal Hospital. The proof of concept shows that SharePoint 2010 is a most suitable solution for patient registration.

Inkendaal Hospital will also use SharePoint 2010 as records management system. By the link with Active Directory and the fact that users must log in, SharePoint knows which persons may have access to certain data. All information from the most diverse applications is now centrally accessible in one environment. This means that all patient records are brought together in one file, in which the patient takes central place. Furthermore, the Intranet will be given an overhaul, and Inkendaal Hospital will make use of the workflows in SharePoint 2010 to automate certain processes such as meeting requests.

Five years ago, Inkendaal Hospital constructed an Intranet based on SharePoint 2003. Today, the hospital wants to upgrade to the latest version, 2010, and it has very good reason for doing so.

“An extra data registration must be kept for each patient being treated under RIZIV conventions,” says Koen De Vos, IT Manager at Inkendaal Hospital. “Apart from the conventional admission details such as name, address, date of admission and discharge, the ward where the patient is staying and his social security details, this information also includes the date when the request was made to the RIZIV, whether the request was approved, etc. Since much of this information is also stored in the hospital information system, we wanted to link this to a new registration system in SharePoint. In this way, we can avoid double data entry, so that no errors can be made when data are entered again. Moreover, with the new registration system all information becomes centrally available.”

Often the same data have to be entered by several departments. Each time a patient is transferred to another ward, he has to be registered again. Moreover, the number of registrations has risen sharply in the last three years as a result of  – like other hospitals – having entered into a number of conventions with the RIZIV (the National Institute for Sickness and Disability Insurance).  Such conventions make it possible to follow up and counsel patients with a certain condition in a multidisciplinary setting. For instance, Inkendaal Hospital has entered into conventions on autism. Proper registration is therefore crucial for reporting to government agencies. The RIZIV must be informed of the treatments that patients receive, since funding is largely dependent on that. “SharePoint is an ideal tool for such cross-departmental processes. However, our earlier SharePoint version had its limitations,” Koen De Vos admits. “There was no link with our hospital information system, and cooperation between the different departments clearly left much to be desired. So we asked Ferranti for advice. In the six years we have now been working together, Ferranti have proved on several occasions that they are worth our trust. More particularly, their high degree of flexibility and the way they approach projects appeal to us.”

Positive test results

“We have shown the newest functions of SharePoint 2010,” explains Oliver Van Camp, Implementation Consultant at Ferranti. “The new version clearly proved to be a most suitable solution for patient registration and for collecting external information in a centralized way. Inkendaal Hospital liked the idea, and so we developed a proof of concept.”

This proof of concept was positively rated. Without much further development being needed, Inkendaal Hospital is now able to collect external information easily in SharePoint and from there make it available to authorized users. Confidential information such as social and psychological reports can only be accessed by the team concerned. By the link with Active Directory and the fact that users must log in, SharePoint knows which persons are allowed access to certain data.

“Although the data we worked with in our proof of concept were not really relevant, we were able to demonstrate that the system works very well technically and that we are therefore ready to actually implement it,” Oliver Van Camp goes on. “So far, it was mainly the IT department that became acquainted with SharePoint 2010. Once we can really put the project on the rails, we will address the actual implementation and training for the various departments step by step.”

Records management system and Intranet

Simplifying the registration process is just one reason to change over to SharePoint 2010. will also use the latest version of SharePoint as records management system. “Eight years ago, eighty percent of all records were still produced in hard copy format; today, we keep everything in electronic version in the most diverse applications,” says Koen De Vos. “All this information was mixed together, and that is something we wanted to change. With SharePoint 2010, all our shared documents will become centrally accessible on one portal. We will no longer have to enter the same information time and again for lack of a central source. As a result of this integration, all patient records will be brought together in one file, in which the patient takes central place.”

Furthermore, the Intranet will be given an overhaul as soon as Inkendaal Hospital starts using SharePoint 2010. “The Intranet is the start page which the user sees when he turns his computer on, and is therefore a familiar environment,” Koen De Vos explains. “On the general page you will find information about the weather, photos of new staff members, the menu of the cafeteria, or the birthdays of colleagues. In addition, however, each team has its own team site. We work in a multidisciplinary setting here. Occupational therapists, speech therapists, psychologists, social workers etc. all have access to their own subsite where they can share calendars, for example. In that way, they can see at a glance when a team meeting or a family meeting is scheduled for a certain patient. In that sense, too, SharePoint has today become an indispensable tool. If it were to break down for even a short time, our work would soon be undermined."

“What struck me immediately during the demo is the ease with which you can modify pages using the new taskbar in SharePoint 2010,” Koen De Vos continues. "The application has become even more user-friendly; text, colour, page and layout can be changed in a trice.”

Inkendaal Hospital will also make use of the workflows in SharePoint 2010 to automate certain processes. Anyone booking a conference room through SharePoint can be sure that his or her request will automatically reach the right persons and can track the status of this request at any time. If the document specifies that coffee or sandwiches must be provided during the meeting, an e-mail is sent automatically to the kitchen after approval of the request. “This helps to make work easier for our people. SharePoint will allow us to work more efficiently in several respects,” Koen De Vos concludes.

About Inkendaal Hospital

Inkendaal Hospital in Vlezenbeek has always occupied a special place in the Belgian healthcare system. Since its inception, it has projected itself by clearly focusing on special needs and has thus become the specialized rehabilitation hospital it is today.

The hospital has room for 178 patients and has more than three hundred staff.

For more information about Inkendaal Hospital, visit http://www.inkendaal.be

Challenge

Inkendaal Hospital was looking for a user-friendly application to organize the registration of treatments more efficiently. In addition, it wanted to make all its information across the various applications centrally accessible to all authorized personnel.

Solution

IT partner Ferranti set up a proof of concept with SharePoint 2010. By linking up with the hospital information system and by information becoming centrally accessible, registration will proceed far more quickly.

Benefits

• Double data entry and possible errors will become a thing of the past
• All information is centrally accessible so that all patient records are brought together in one file
• SharePoint is an ideal tool for cross-departmental cooperation
• Without much further development being needed, external information can now be collected easily in SharePoint
• SharePoint 2010 is also a practical records management system
• Calendars can easily be shared over the Intranet
• Pages can be easily modified using the new taskbar in SharePoint 2010
• Workflows in SharePoint 2010 make it possible to automate processes and work more efficiently