In conversation with Wilco Beekhuizen, software developer at HCI CRS.
As a practitioner, you often see 6 or 7 clients a day. After each session, you write reports, schedule a new appointment, or process a bill. The art is to ensure that this administration takes up as little time and attention as possible, so that more attention remains for the client.
Wilco Beekhuizen, software developer, has been helping to build the HCI CRS EHR for seventeen years and asks himself the same question in everything he develops: How do we ensure that the practitioner pays as much attention as possible to the person in front of them? Because the practitioner simply needs to be able to do their thing, which is treating. And be disturbed as little as possible by peripheral matters.
If you build an EHR, you must know healthcare practice.
Wilco is a business informatics specialist. According to him, to do his job well, you need to understand more than just technology. “You shouldn't just be good at working with computers. You also need to understand what is happening in the market.”
By that market, he means the daily practice of mental health and youth care. What is going on with practitioners. Which regulations are changing and what that means for the work processes of care organizations. According to him, that requires something specific from a developer. Because when new regulations are introduced, the first inclination is often to build exactly what the rules state. Wilco prefers to look a step further.
As an example, he cites the Youth Act and the Wmo. Two different schemes that have a great deal of overlap. Instead of duplicating everything, he develops a single shared basis for what is the same and adds the exceptions separately. If the Wmo changes, we change it along with the Youth Act at the same time so that the caseworker does not have to think about it.
That way of thinking reveals what is needed to understand how a practitioner works and what they need on a daily basis. And you only know that if you are close to the practice.
What can go wrong if an EHR is unfamiliar with healthcare practice
When customers switch to CRS, Wilco often sees the same thing happen. “Customers who switch end up with entire lists of Excel files they keep alongside it, because they can't extract that from the EHR.” A practitioner or healthcare administrator who maintains an Excel list alongside the system is doing work that the EHR should actually be doing. Because every minute spent on shadow administration is time that does not go to clients.
Wilco therefore sees it as his mission to make as much as a practitioner needs available within the EHR itself. So that those extra checklists and checks eventually become redundant.
How HCI CRS knows what is happening in healthcare practice
To respond effectively to developments in healthcare, HCI CRS closely monitors changes in regulations. For instance, HCI CRS participates in consultations with municipal parties where new developments are discussed. Additionally, the application consultants often learn early on from clients about upcoming changes. “In conversations with our clients, we hear signals that something is about to change before it becomes an official rule.” This allows HCI CRS to think ahead and prepare for what healthcare organizations will need in the future.
How that knowledge is translated into the EHR
When a file is closed, the system reminds the user of missing information. It is also possible to set reminders for the practitioner or for colleagues. This ensures that you do not have to constantly check yourself whether everything has been entered.
The various forms of financing have also been incorporated into the EHR. As a result, the system aligns with the requirements for registration and billing, and healthcare professionals are supported in recording the correct information. In this way, the system supports the practitioner without them having to constantly think about administrative details.
What it brings you as a practitioner
While practitioners want to focus on their clients, rules, registrations, and administrative processes are constantly changing in the background. According to Wilco, a practitioner should have to deal with this as little as possible. That is why he has been contributing to CRS for nearly two decades, based on the idea that it is not about the software, but about the person who works with it every day.
For the practitioner, this means spending less time on peripheral matters and having more confidence that the administrative aspects are correct, without separate Excel spreadsheets or retrospective checks. They also need to concern themselves less with changing regulations, as the system adapts in the background. This leaves more attention for the client, and a file can be closed at the end of the day with peace of mind.
About Wilco Beekhuizen
Wilco Beekhuizen has been working as a developer at HCI CRS for seventeen years. He is one of the organization's first employees and has been helping to build the EHR for mental health and youth care organizations ever since.