Zorggroep Meander provides care for the elderly and children in a number of nursing homes, children’s centres and clients’ own homes in the Netherlands. In addition to its 900 office staff, Meander has 4500 employees providing healthcare. When Meander decided to convert its timesheet and leave request system from paper to digital, it went to Open Line Consultancy for expert advice. 

"We encouraged Zorggroep Meander to move to the cloud and give its employees the flexibility to easily access their timesheets online from anywhere,” says Jo Verstappen, Sales Director, Open Line. Open Line presented the healthcare organization with the option of using cloud computing. The term describes a new way of working whereby data, software, computing power and storage reside in the “cloud”—that is to say, in shared servers in remote computing sites and accessed on demand via the Internet. Instead of being a drain on capital and human resources, cloud computing enables rapid, agile and cost-effective solutions. 

“Microsoft Online Services proved to be the best solution for us. There is no need to invest in hardware and software licenses. It also eliminates the need for installations and configurations,” says Laurens Faessen, Manager Client Health Administration & ICT for MeanderGroep. Just three months after engaging with the consultancy, Meander’s new cloud leave request system had gone live. Since health practitioners spend most of their time away from a computer, each of Meander’s 4500 care workers received individual user accounts, which they can access from any computer with a Web browser and an Internet connection. The system currently provides the human resources solution for recording hours, but also offers scalability and the flexibility of adding other functions, such as email and calendars. 

The care provider subscribes to the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS), a cloud-based set of Microsoft messaging and collaboration solutions. With services hosted off premises, BPOS has transformed IT from a capital expense into an operational one. “We pay per month and per user, so there’s always a balance between what you get and what you pay. The fact that all maintenance is included and that we don’t have to make back-ups ourselves makes Microsoft Online Services a good and cost-effective solution,” says Faessen. In Meander’s case, having servers and backup hosted on the premises of Open Line Consultancy reduced costs to less than 40% compared to the healthcare organization running its own servers. 

Meander no longer needs to install, maintain and upgrade software. “This initiative not only increased accuracy—there is no need to transfer data between forms anymore as the system does it automatically—but it also allowed Meander to concentrate more efficiently on the core of its mission: providing care for the elderly and children around the country,” adds Verstrappen. 

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