Everyone in Dutch healthcare seems to agree: digital tools can help keep healthcare accessible and of high quality. There are an increasing number of individual solutions available, but unfortunately, they often remain on the shelf. It turns out that healthcare providers have little time to delve into all these different solutions, let alone start using them.

That’s a pity because when you harness the power of digital tools in the right way, they can help you solve problems. To make sure people actually use these tools, Quin’s adoption team actively supports the incorporation of them into daily practice.

How do you encourage both staff and patients to really use our digital tools? Christiaan de Vries, Quin Adoption Consultant, shares six tips.

Tip 1: Offer a solution to a problem

Before you can find a technological solution, you need to have a clear picture of what the problem is. It is about reasoning from the challenge, not from the means. For this, it is important to discover together with practitioners what their needs are. Only when you have that clearly mapped out can you get to work.

When we, as Quin, partner with a practice, the first thing we do is ask a lot of questions, identify the bottlenecks, and then work with the practice employees to devise the solutions.

Tip 2: Learn from each other

If you throw a tool at someone and say, ‘Good luck with it!’, it will never work. The practice team and the developer need to work together and learn from each other. Users want to know what a functionality can offer them and how to deploy it effectively. The developer listens to users’ experiences to make the tool fit the practice.

At Quin, we have two dedicated teams at the ready for this purpose. The implementation team explains the tools and provides training. A separate adoption team works with the practice to incorporate the platform into daily operations. It is an iterative process that we undertake together.

Tip 3: Involve your patients

It may seem obvious, but getting patients on board from the get-go is crucial. That is why we help practices inform their patients early on. We do this by providing educational materials for in and around the practice. These include flyers, posters, waiting room displays and emails. This communication is intended to inform, excite and encourage people so that they download the app. After that first round of communication, approximately ten to fifteen percent of all patients will have downloaded the app. From there, we continue to work together to boost this percentage.

Tip 4: Turn your staff into ambassadors

Downloads alone will not get you there. You also want patients to start using the app. Your employees are the best ambassadors to get them to do just that. After all, patients listen most to advice from their GPs and their assistants. Your staff are also the go-to people when patients have questions about the app. If they notice that certain tools make their work easier, they are more likely to get patients enthusiastic about using those tools.

Tip 5: It is never ‘finished’

Innovation is an ongoing process. It is essential that the practice team and developer stay in conversation to keep optimising the digital tools. As Quin, we do this in weekly check-ins, where we visit practices and collect feedback. This allows us to continually improve our products based on stories and experiences from the practice. In the process, we can also quickly fix any technical issues.

Tip 6: Show that it works

People embrace new things when they see that they add value, so it important to make transparent what a tool delivers. At Quin, we closely monitor the use of our solutions. How many instant messages are sent? How many users are active each month? How many new users have joined? We share these analyses and insights with practices so that GPs and practice staff can see what effect a particular action has had. This is instructive and fun, especially for the practice teams. 

In conclusion

Digital tools are not magic tools that suddenly make problems disappear. But if we use them in the right way, they can make care better and the process run more smoothly. The result? Patients taking control of their own health and practice staff experiencing less workload. That is a tremendous step forward for everyone.