Dijklander Hospital offers workflow learning support for COVID-19

The Erasmus Medical Center’s COVID-19 solution that launched back in March provided inspiration for Dijklander. Petra Osborne, Senior HRD Advisor at Dijklander Hospital and co-manager of AskDijklander, explains. “When we were asked to prepare for a second wave of the coronavirus, I started researching how fellow hospitals have dealt with the growing demand for care and the daily surge of new information that healthcare professionals have to deal with. I came across the Erasmus MC solution, where I created an account and looked at their workflow learning solution. I immediately knew we needed this too!”

Diverse skills and input

At the start of the first coronavirus outbreak in March 2020, Petra and her colleagues Ilona van Gerven, Chantal Himmelreich, and Gea van der Helm faced the question. “How do we get people up to speed as quickly as possible?” A team of four experts developed online handbooks used to induct those returning to the hospital or coming to work from other departments, with the Emergency Room and Intensive Care Unit procedures. This same team at the end of July started to build the AskDijklander solution.

The Erasmus MC solution was used as the foundation platform, so the first step was to determine the information relevant to Dijklander. Non-relevant information was removed and new Dijklander topics were added.  Petra: “To build our solution, we needed a mix of people and skills. Knowledge of the organization is vital, e.g., who do I go to for what? Knowledge of the subject is critical, as is knowledge about the portal itself; how do you populate such a workflow solution, and with what?  Xprtise enabled this smoothly. We involved people with relevant skills and knowledge from the hospital, nurses, and several subject experts. This helped our solution be designed as simply yet comprehensively as possible.”

Up-to-date information always available

Petra: “We worked long days to get the workflow learning solution ready on time.” Initially five weeks were planned to roll out AskDijklander, though there was a delay due to increased demand for staff on the ground. Petra: “We couldn’t take people off important jobs in the hospital at will to populate the portal, so I’m very proud of what we achieved in just a few weeks!“

AskDijklander offers e-learning modules, workplace protocols, and other relevant information; a practical approach. To ensure that the most current information is always delivered, content in the portal has been linked to iProva. This is a document management system that Dijklander uses to store its most up-to-date protocols and documents. Petra: “Healthcare is subject to so many changes, you don’t want to risk having out of date information. The connection with iProva prevents that.” In some cases, AskDijklander also includes recorded videos that support workflow information.

“AskDijklander is a comprehensive workflow learning solution that helps us with the growing demand for care and the daily surge of new information that our healthcare professionals have to deal with. I am proud of what we have achieved in such a short time!”

All hands on deck!

Dijklander Hospital thinks and acts based on the Lean philosophy: continuous improvement is part of its daily work. AskDijklander fits in perfectly with that. The workflow learning solution is now live for almost a month, and early feedback from users is positive. The Board of Directors is also very enthusiastic. Petra: “Our staff find the solution clear, comprehensive, and very user-friendly. That’s what we do it for! All hands on deck to get the coronavirus under control and support our healthcare professionals daily in these hectic times.” The first usage figures are good. More than 2,500 unique users have used the new workflow learning solution in the first month. This is reflected in almost 27,000 page views, 177 searches, more than 300 PDFs downloaded, and approximately 900 clicked links.Going forward, Dijklander Hospital will introduce a workflow learning approach that delivers the right information at the right time. The focus first is on the COVID-19 foundation solution. Then it will be further enhanced. Petra: “Workflow learning is quickly and easily accessible. Our staff can learn when it suits them, and it fits in the context of the work they are doing. Hectic in the workplace? Even so, the correct information is available quickly and clearly. We definitely need that!”