GGZ Nederland Stimulates Innovation in Behavioral Healthcare Sector

“The collaboration with Capgemini Consulting was very good because of their knowledge and experience and jointly attaining the result.”
Stephan Valk, RA, CEO, Parnassia Bavo Group, Chair of the REPD Steering Committee

The Situation

GGZ Nederland, the branch organization of the behavioral healthcare sector in the Netherlands, was keen to use innovative technology in the area of Electronic Health Records (EHRs). Behavioral health care includes psychiatric and psychological treatment, as well as addiction and residential support. Providers of behavioral health care were disappointed in the EHR products their vendors delivered to them, due to factors including governmental interference, outdated applications, and high entry barriers in the institutions involved in the healthcare sector.

At the same time, the need for the implementation of modern EHR products was seen as a key strategic imperative for behavioral health institutions to address the increasing pressure on price, transparency, and health outcomes of the care provided.

The Solution

In order to tackle these problems, and to stimulate innovation, GGZ Nederland wanted to develop a model which contained joint demands and wishes from the field concerning EHRs. This model, called the Reference Model for an Electronic Health Record (or REPD), consists of a common representation of the processes in the behavioral healthcare sector and their consequences for IT support in terms of a detailed set of requirements. The development of the REPD was accompanied by a communications plan to raise awareness and an elaboration of strategies to achieve the overall objectives of GGZ Nederland.  

The Result

The project resulted in a Reference Model for an EHR which has already been used by some healthcare organizations in the behavioral healthcare sector – helping them select a suitable software package. Furthermore, vendors are enthusiastic about the model and are using it for adjustments to their applications to make them more relevant to their clients. In line with the strategies developed, GGZ Nederland initiated a comparison study of available EHR applications on the Dutch market, published in 2009, based on the Reference Model. Also, a joint procurement process has been carried out by a group of large behavioral health institutions, using the Reference Model as a starting point. As a result, four vendors have been contracted in 2011 to deliver extended solutions that conform to the joint requirements of the sector.