With Evie, e-health becomes much more efficient

The GP Team consists of 21 GP practices in West Brabant, who combine knowledge, experience and strength. Together, their goal is to provide the best care in the right place. Besides general practitioner care, they also provide care to frail elderly people, people with psychological complaints, people who want to quit smoking, and people with long-term illnesses. Since last year, they have been working with Evie. Ingrid Romme (GGZ program manager) and Christel Kronenberg (POH-GGZ) tell how they like it and what the added value of Evie is for Het Huisartsenteam.

Christel: "We have been offering e-health for about seven years. We first did that directly through Minddistrict and last year we switched to Evie. Because Minddistrict is integrated into the Evie platform, the transition went very easily. What did change was everything around that: the extra service, helpdesk and training for example. Colleagues who don't know Evie yet can use the online training. This allows them to get started with e-health right away. At the end of last year we also followed an offline training on motivating professionals to use Evie in practice. In this way we keep our professionals' knowledge of e-health up to date very easily and we make sure that as many colleagues as possible use it."

"In addition, Evie's help desk also has great advantages for us," continues Ingrid. "Previously, the secretariat collected the questions they couldn't answer themselves. Then they posed them to Minddistrict. Now the users (doctors, professionals and patients) themselves have direct contact with Evie when they have questions. That's a lot more efficient."

Evie is close to the practice

Christel and Ingrid agree that Evie is close to the practice. The trainings are not given by someone who mainly has technical knowledge of the system, but by a POH. They know exactly what you encounter in practice. And that makes it easier to think along with the users of Evie. So the professionals at Het Huisartsenteam are satisfied, but what do the patients think about it?

Christel: "Almost everyone is enthusiastic. There are very few people who cannot or do not want to work with Evie. Our patients also notice that they can take steps in their mental health much faster with e-health. And that can be done in a way that suits them as well as their POH. In consultation with the patient, I usually choose to have Evie notify me when someone has completed a chapter in a self-help module. I give online feedback and then the patient can move on to the next chapter. As a POH-GGZ I unfortunately have limited time available per patient, but thanks to e-health we can use that time very efficiently. And that benefits everyone."

E-health as a preventive tool

At a time when we face rising healthcare costs and assume positive health and self-direction, prevention is an indispensable part of healthcare. Evie provides this with its self-help modules.

"The content aligns well with practice," says Ingrid. "So that's already well done. Now it's up to us to make the modules even more findable, so that even more people can benefit from e-health. The steps we are taking to that end are improving our website and integrating Evie with Pharmeon's 'Your Care Online' app. This way, patients can also access Evie's modules in the app (which they have anyway). And that makes e-health even more accessible for our patients. By the way, we don't have to arrange anything for that ourselves. Evie is also very proactive in this respect: we made the wish for integration known and they do the rest."

Cooperation in the chain

Collaboration in the chain also becomes a lot easier with Evie, especially as more and more parties join Evie. The patient can easily switch to another professional and continue working on the modules. And he or she does not have to re-enter all the data, because they are already known.

Whether there are any areas of improvement for Evie? Ingrid and Christel have to think about it for a long time. But they do have one tip for Evie: make it more available to non-native speakers. Evie has some English and German modules, but they are also in demand by people who speak Polish, Ukrainian or Arabic. With modules in more languages, they too can get started with e-health.

That The Family Medicine Team is enthusiastic may be obvious. Christel: "I had a trainee who told me that her fellow students were not entirely positive about e-health. That surprised both of us. But I am convinced that they then have the wrong idea about the added value of e-health in practice. Or that they have the wrong system."