Why Standby Zorg chooses a customized planning tool

Chances are, when you think of home care, you think of caregivers driving routes and providing the necessary care in short moments, like putting on support stockings. In that regard, Standby Zorg is a strange, progressive oddity. The organization offers care in blocks from 3 consecutive hours up to 24 hours, where clients receive the precise care and attention they need at that moment. To provide that care, Standby Zorg draws from a network of certified freelancers. Properly scheduling the care is essential. Until recently, the planners at Standby Zorg worked with Care Assist, a tool that ceased to exist in 2023. The search for a new planning tool began.

Why custom solutions?

Replacing the planning tool is part of a larger project where we support Standby Zorg in standardizing, digitalizing and automating business processes. We adhere to the rule that we only develop an application ourselves if there is a good reason for it. And there was. “We noticed that existing planning tools make plans based on the availability and contract hours of nurses,” says Patty van de Wetering, product owner at Standby Zorg. “Whereas we approach it the other way around; we want to plan from clients' needs. They indicate which care moments they need, and we find freelancers to match them. Our entire organization is built on this mindset, so we didn't want to compromise here.” Nick, designer at Freshheads, adds: “If we had chosen standard software, the planners at Standby Zorg would have had to work with many exceptions, while we want to move towards standards to make everything more predictable and scalable.” Developing an application yourself for a process for which standard solutions also exist is not something you do just like that. But these arguments were convincing enough to do it anyway.

Co-creation with planners

Nick: “Making a planning tool is quite complex. Because planning doesn’t stand alone; it involves many related processes, like approving hours, invoicing, and crediting. What made this project even more complex was that it involved a replacement question. You are essentially taking away something that people have been working with for years, and then you can almost only get it wrong.” To come to the most valuable and supported tool within the tight deadline, the team at Freshheads involved the planners of Standby Zorg in the development. “We had conversations with the planners, gathered what they liked and disliked about the existing system, and what they need to do their work,” Nick explains. “Based on those insights, we created a design and a working prototype, which we then let the planners click through. This yielded valuable feedback, allowing us to improve the prototype.”

The approach: together with planners

In October 2023, the planning system went live. Deadline met! How does the new system work? Each client has their own care arrangement, completely tailored to their wishes and needs. For example: a man with dementia who needs three hours of care every weekday morning, except on the weekend when the family takes over the care and it is beneficial for a caregiver to check in during the afternoon. The system translates such an arrangement into separate blocks in an agenda. Each block has a fee that is automatically calculated based on standard rules that have been established. The planners see an overview of all the care moments that still need to be scheduled and match the appropriate freelancer to a moment. There are also rules attached to this. Does the client have a fixed care team? Are certain freelancers excluded because they do not fit the client? Does the caregiver need specific certificates? Once a care moment has occurred, it is processed: the freelancer approves the worked hours, which appear in their own monthly overview. If everything is correct, freelancers can immediately create and send an invoice.

No more exceptions

So, is it indeed true that you can only get it wrong with a replacement? “The live launch could not have gone better,” responds Nick. Patty is also positive. “Many colleagues indicate they have never experienced such a smooth transition from a system. That's thanks to Freshheads, because the team tested everything well, involved people, and really thought from the perspective of the planners and clients. They also worked hard to push the deadline forward.” The improvement compared to the old situation is noticeable. Nick: “For planners, the new environment feels very natural, and what I find cool is that they now come to me with ideas.” The speed and effectiveness of planning have increased. “We used to live by the exceptions,” says Patty. “But now everything is standardized and automated. And because it is now much easier for freelancers to report in the system, the frequency and quality of reporting have gone up.”

Future: towards a demand and supply platform

The next step is to work towards an online platform for freelancer mediation in care. In the coming period, we will gradually add platform principles to the digital environment to enable automatic matching. Check this blog to read more about the step-by-step development of a freelancer platform in care.

The moral of this story

Do not see this story as an argument for custom solutions, because custom solutions should not be the standard. The point is that as an organization, you make a conscious choice. You should always adapt yourself to an existing tool. In the case of Standby Zorg, this would not contribute to their mission to always approach care from the client’s perspective. The organization now has an IT architecture in place that makes it possible to set a new standard for providing care.