Success Stories
Treant, interview with Ineke and Henriët
- By Nidaros
A few years ago, Nidaros began a collaboration with Treant, an organization with three hospital locations and seventeen centers for living and care in Drenthe and Groningen. In the meantime, Nidaros’ Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is being used in various ways within the healthcare group. Reason enough for us to discuss the collaboration with Ineke Potze-Vloo, application manager at Treant, and Henriët Nies-Holtrust, application manager for mijnCaress.
Treant uses RPA in several ways and for different systems. The responsibility for this did not initially lie with system management; that came later. The first application of the robot was implemented in the HR system used by Treant. They started by automating a few repetitive processes for registering working hours. Later, this was expanded, and the robot now also handles user registrations and performs recalculations for checking hours.
In addition to the HR system, RPA is also used by the infection prevention department and has been implemented in mijnCaress. Due to the developments surrounding the COVID virus, a lot of work arose for infection prevention. Employees of the care group are regularly tested for the virus. Until recently, test results were communicated by phone, which created a large workload. For several months now, RPA has taken over this part of the process. As soon as an employee is tested and the result is known, the robot triggers an SMS to the person concerned. By opening the SMS, the employee can immediately see whether their result is positive or negative. In the case of a positive result, a staff member from infection prevention still calls the employee. Automating this process saves a great deal of time and work.
Another module is used by mijnCaress, a system in which, among other things, test results are processed. Previously, staff had to look up the results manually and process them correctly. Nowadays, the robot performs this task. As soon as results become available, they are picked up by the robot. RPA reviews the results and automatically creates a notification indicating that results are available and what type of results they are. Another task performed is issuing a message when a specialist letter is received in the system.
Experiences with Nidaros and RPA
Because the services of Nidaros are used in several ways, we were curious about the experiences. Henriët told us without hesitation that the collaboration is good and that Nidaros responds quickly. If there are questions or matters to be discussed, a reply is often given within an hour. She adds that in many cases, it concerns additional features or new ideas to discuss. According to her, Nidaros never avoids a “no” and always investigates the possibilities.
Although the robot’s work is not visible, the experiences with RPA are also positive. One advantage of the collaboration is that Nidaros does not need to know an entire system and how it works in order to implement RPA. Simply put, Nidaros only needs to know which route must be followed in a particular process and what steps the robot must take along that route.
For this reason, it is crucial that the organization’s processes are in order. All actions performed by the robot are initially performed by people. These actions must align properly to prevent issues in the process. If something does go wrong, the robot cannot adapt. For this reason, some tasks have been paused in order to evaluate the relevant processes and adjust them where necessary. The collaboration also serves as a mirror for the organization, allowing insights into whether processes are designed correctly.
New developments
The collaboration between both parties does not stand still. At the moment, new RPA applications are being developed. For example, work is being done to automate the creation of accounts for employees in an internal registration system used by Treant. The first steps have been taken to begin creating accounts for new external healthcare providers. Once that process is implemented in the desired way and functions properly, it will also be extended to creating accounts for internal healthcare providers.
Developments around this process are still in the early stages. Research is currently being conducted into how the robot can gain access to the relevant system. The next step is preparing the process for the robot. The route for this process is already clear; all steps have been mapped out in detail by Nidaros.
For systems where the robot has already taken over processes, new applications are continuously being explored. For example, there is already consideration of an extension that would allow the robot to deactivate accounts when they are no longer in use or may no longer be used. Additionally, Nidaros and Treant are examining whether there are more repetitive tasks that the robot can take over.
Because both parties view existing and new possibilities from different perspectives, they look beyond conventional frameworks to find suitable applications. According to Ineke and Henriët, this is what makes the collaboration with Nidaros particularly pleasant.
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