February 18, 2020

Provider for mental health care, Arkin, wanted a reduction in administrative burden and better internal collaboration. As soon as the IT team saw Microsoft Teams, they were immediately enthusiastic. This would really connect the organisations with each other. Meanwhile, the majority of the organisation is using Teams. The result is better collaboration between employees and the various teams, less travel time and administration. This time saving leads to more attention and care for the clients. How Teams contributes to less regulatory burden in healthcare. A customer case description.

WHY DOES ARKIN CHOOSE TEAMS?

To be able to provide optimal care, it is important that projects and back-office work efficiently (together). User-friendliness for employees was the main requirement for Arkin’s IT team regarding Teams. Simply because employees won’t use it otherwise. The fact that Microsoft Teams is user-friendly is evident from its use in practice. Employees can work where and when they want, from any device. They have direct access to the necessary documents and can communicate with each other much faster and more efficiently via chat.

In short, Teams serves as the central platform on which all employees work. Exactly as the management intended.

PROJECT APPROACH MIGRATION PER (CARE) TEAM

For a smooth transition, Arkin, in collaboration with Rapid Circle, chooses a migration per (care) team. An extensive adoption program and personal guidance per team helps employees to quickly get used to the new system. This personal guidance is important because it ensures that Microsoft Teams really helps employees on a department to work more efficiently, leaving more time for primary tasks.

INVOLVEMENT, WORK SCENARIOS, AND CONFIGURATION

As a kick-off, an IT project employee from Arkin visits each team to ask how the team works, what they need and where opportunities lie. Teams is then configured based on this work scenario and the associated wishes and requirements. The new Teams environment therefore feels immediately familiar, also because, for example, the folder structure is the same. Employees can start working immediately after the migration.

EVALUATION

A month after the migration, Arkin’s project team returns to evaluate and provide additional support and practical tips if necessary. The experience shows that this follow-up session results in additional benefits. For example, by explaining how communicating via chat saves a lot of time. Or how you can easily collaborate on a document. In this way, employees quickly experience how Teams supports them in their daily work.

ACCESS TO IMPORTANT CARE DOCUMENTS DIRECTLY FROM TEAMS

Healthcare workers must be able to quickly access specific predetermined care documents such as care protocols, care manuals, and forms. Because healthcare workers can and want to do everything from Teams, Rapid Circle has developed a Power App that offers all structured documents from SharePoint easily searchable within Teams. Employees can search in different ways, for example, by keyword, theme, or document type. This allows them to quickly find the right information. Because they are predetermined documents, they always know that they have the correct information.

CONTROL OVER MANAGEMENT

To make Teams manageable for the management team and the organisation, Teams is rolled out automatically, based on cost centre, care team or project. This way they keep control of the environments and can manage them properly. Rapid Circle has set up the rollout in such a way that employees are automatically (and easily) added to the (care) team they work for. They are also automatically removed when they leave the team. This is even possible for one day and does not require extra work. New employees can therefore start working immediately, without any onboarding time. Especially for an organisation with many flex workers, this saves a lot of time in management activities and administration.

RESULT

The healthcare workers at Arkin are enthusiastic about Teams, especially because it works very intuitively. And satisfied employees are productive employees! The management organisation is enthusiastic about Teams because they have simple ways to maintain control and have more overview. And at the same time, they can work more efficiently because many tasks are automated. Everything is managed from a solid governance structure.

Concrete results after the implementation include:

1. Central access to documents Documents are always accessible anywhere and easy to share. With custom-built Power Apps, employees have direct access to relevant (healthcare) protocols, procedures, and manuals that they can search by topic or instance.
2. Fast and easy communication Healthcare teams use chat for discussions, such as swapping shifts, but also for daily handovers that are not in the ECD.
3. Improved collaboration Employees find that Teams makes it much easier to connect with others and have team-level discussions. Multidisciplinary meetings are easier to schedule because everyone can join from their location. Finding and connecting with a colleague with a specific expertise is more accessible with Teams. In short, it creates more connection throughout the entire Arkin organisation.
4. Shorter travel time Arkin has many different locations inside and outside the city of Amsterdam. Cycling back and forth between those locations takes a lot of time. Thanks to Teams, more meetings can be held online, and travel time has visibly decreased.
5. Work method suits the new generation Young employees are used to communicating via short messages. Because this approach matches their preference, Arkin retains the new generation with this method.
6. Less administrative burden Arkin actively aims for less administrative burden. Teams ensures that employees can efficiently access all documents and information anywhere, on any device. This reduces administrative work for employees, reduces their workload, and allows them to spend more time with patients at home.

FUTURE

Together with Rapid Circle, Arkin is expanding Microsoft Teams further. A successful pilot has been conducted with a service bot developed by Rapid Circle. Employees can ask support questions to this chatbot. Due to its success, this service bot will soon be available throughout the organisation.

As Arkin adds more functionality, Teams becomes richer and has a more central role. They are even considering whether the employee portal still has a place since Teams already has everything. Why would Arkin still need an employee portal?

LESS ADMINISTRATION, BETTER CARE

In addition to their own employees, ultimately it is Arkin’s clients who benefit from the more efficient collaboration and reduced workload. Thanks to Microsoft Teams, there is more time and attention for care and collaboration with the network around the client. This is good news, as reported by the Dutch news channel NOS!