Nictiz magazine: AI against registration burden

Nictiz magazine has an entire issue on AI against the registration burden. The entire magazine can be read via this link.

Pages 14 and 15 feature an interview with Kiyomid van der Veer, innovation consultant at Warande, an elderly organization in Zeist and surrounding areas. They use Kepler Night Nurse.

Read the interview below.

Elder care organization Warande

At elderly care organization Warande, they are working hard to implement digital innovations. The intention is that in the future every care employee will have his or her own telephone on which all signals will come in. ‘People can find each other better and no longer have to walk to the computer to look something up.’

Kiyomid van der Veer is an innovation consultant at Warande, an elderly organization in Zeist and surrounding areas. When it comes to AI and digital innovation, the organization is still exploring what it can do with it, she says. But in the meantime, the necessary initiatives in this area are already underway and there are already clear plans for the future.

Smart nurse call system

The main focus now is on assistive systems in healthcare. Take the Kepler-Night-Nurse, an accurate nurse call system that works based on AI. Nurse call systems, which, for example, signal when a client gets out of bed or falls, have always been around. But they had a number of disadvantages, Van der Veer says. ‘Older systems, for example, do not recognize the person. And also, for example, signal if a blanket falls out of bed. Or if someone dangles with their legs out of bed but doesn’t get out. As a result, there were many false alarms. Care professionals also react to those signals later because of the amount of notifications, and the many error messages in between.’In other areas, too, the system has become a lot smarter. Van der Veer: ‘You can now set per client when you want to receive a notification. For one client, that can be as soon as someone gets out of bed. And for another, only if the person is not back in bed after ten minutes or not at all.’

Person-centered care

Such an innovation not only serves convenience but also requires a different way of working. ‘Employees really have to start thinking carefully now: what do I really want to know about the resident?’ explains Van der Veer. ‘What is important to provide good care for this specific resident? And this also involves leaving as much freedom as possible with the client. Because we don’t need to know everything. It’s fine if someone gets out of bed at night to eat a banana. If you know that, then you could set up that you only get a notification if someone hasn’t gone back to bed after 20 minutes.’ Such a system promotes person-centered care and is much more geared toward allowing people to live their own lives. ‘That’s a line of thought we have to take employees into,’ Van der Veer continues. ‘It also means, for example, that you no longer just walk into a room to check how a resident is doing.’

Work faster

The Kepler Night Nurse was tested in a pilot in one department over the past few months. The intention is to deploy the application more widely throughout the organization in 2025. That includes the speech-driven reporting application and the use of one’s own cell phone. Most employees like voice-based reporting, Van der Veer knows. Although sometimes they have to get used to the fact that they are talking out loud. And then a colleague thinks: hey, what is she babbling to herself? But once they get over that little hurdle, almost all of them say it works so much faster.’

Direct reporting

Voice-based reporting also affects the work process. What many employees have to get used to is that they are now being asked to report immediately. And not, as usually happened before, only at the end of their shift. ‘Direct reporting makes the quality of reporting better,’ Van der Veer explains. ‘First of all, it’s still in your head. You know better what you want to report. Before, that was often based on some keywords written on a piece of paper. If you can speak the text on the spot, that’s also easier.’

Own phone

Furthermore, the intention is that in the future every care employee will have his or her own phone on which all signals come in and also the reports. The proposal came from the VVAR, the Care and Nursing Advisory Council. ‘Now employees still carry all kinds of different devices in their pockets, such as for the nurse call system, the fire alarm and the mobile phone,’ says Van der Veer. ‘That’s inconvenient. Moreover, you can put all kinds of handy apps, such as Vilans protocols, information about palliative care and video observation options for practitioners, on it. Now employees often have to walk to the computer or a tablet to figure something out.’

Employees happy

Getting all the systems on one phone is doable in terms of ICT, but does take time, according to Van der Veer. ‘Nursing call systems are also quite pricey. And we have to replace some systems because they don’t match the new applications.’ But in the pilot, she sees how happy employees are with it. ‘Employees can also find each other better because now they all have their own number. We haven’t experienced much resistance.’