case study

Coordinating Altrio regional offices and home health nurses in the field with Siilo

Altrio is the largest independent home nursing service in Vlaanderen working with self-employed nurses, assisting 600 nurses with patient intake, marketing, and administration. Coordination between the nurses and the Altrio office, between home health nurses themselves, as well as with other care professionals, is supported by Siilo.

Challenge: Secure follow-up on care

Altrio works with regional coordinators, called coaches, who support home health nurses in patient movement and consultation with referrers. When a patient needs to be transferred from one caretaker to another, the coach coordinates the process with the receiving nurse. This exchange typically took place over the phone, and the nurse then wrote down the necessary information and picked up the care. However, it was difficult for the coach to follow up with the receiving nurse about patient care following the transfer. Altrio started looking for a means of communication for regional coaches and independent nurses to improve coordination and transfer of patients.

“Our coaches used to call nurses for passing on patient care information. The nurse then wrote down the necessary details and that was it. However, to ensure high-quality care in a rapidly growing organisation like Altrio, we needed a new way to better follow up on care in a way that was GDPR compliant.”

Stefan Biesemans, Regional coach Altrio, surroundings North Antwerp

Solution: Coordinate care regionally via Siilo

Wouter Geerts, regional coordinator for Antwerp, investigated various means of communication. Siilo Messenger, the free communication app, had already been in use by a growing number of home health nurses in Belgium and was considered to be a simple, secure solution. Upon reviewing Siilo’s many features, like broadcasting messages, he decided that Siilo could also be used for coordination between the regional coaches in Altrio’s administrative office and the home health nurses in the field. This opportunity convinced Geerts to implement Siilo organisation-wide.

“Siilo is not just a means of communication. You can use it in multiple different ways, allowing for our office to handle all of our administrative tasks easily.”

Wouter Geerts, Antwerp regional coordinator at Altrio

Communication between Altrio and the independent home health nurses

After the regional coach has called the nurse about a patient, all details, such as name and address, are safely sent to the nurse through a direct broadcast via the Siilo Connect tool. The nurse then keeps the regional coaches informed on patient status via chat in their Siilo app. All coaches have access to the Siilo admin tool, from where the broadcast is sent. When a nurse replies to a broadcast message, a coach can have this conversation through the chat inbox in the admin tool. In this chat inbox, coaches can keep an overview of current cases and coordinate their follow-up conversations with nurses in charge of recently transferred patients. Through Siilo, both nurses and coaches can work more efficiently and are free of previous administrative hassles.

Communication between the home health nurses and care professionals in the region

Home health nurses use the Siilo app to discuss patients amongst themselves. All nurses are included in Siilo’s private Altrio member directory by default, and they can get in touch with one another via the app even when they do not have each other’s contact details. Connecting is made even easier with the Altrio member directory within Siilo, and as a result, the right person with the right knowledge can be located faster and added to a group chat thread where their expertise is most helpful.

Nurses are also able to efficiently collaborate with GPs in monitoring a patient and communicating about the needed care. With access to the Siilo Medical Directory, nurses can contact any other care provider on Siilo and start a chat, just like when they connect with one another. Biesemans explains: “Siilo is very important for communication between care providers. It is easy to start a group chat with general practitioners and specialists when dealing with palliative patients and receive a very quick response using Siilo. We used to call GP offices directly, but GPs were often occupied in meetings or with patients. With Siilo, GPs can respond at a time that suits them, and we can get the answers we need without disturbance.”

Results: Follow-up of patient care safer and more efficient

Using the Siilo app and the broadcast function, Altrio’s regional coaches have better insight into which care has been accepted and whether a patient has actually been contacted. This makes monitoring patient care throughout the region easier, more efficient, and secure.

Siilo is therefore a success for Altrio, as well as for the home health nurses. At the beginning of 2020, more than 300 nurses were actively using Siilo. Since then, the average number of messages sent and received per month by Altrio members grew to 150.000, with a record of 300.000 messages exchanged in March.

How can your organisation implement Siilo?

Would you like to know more about how Siilo can help your team to work better and safer together? Please contact us at https://www.siilo.com/start-with-siilo.