Ten Amsterdam Nursing Homes Will Collaborate in A Pilot Project To Reduce Their Own Waiting Lists. Currently, Patients Wait An Average of At Least Two Hundreds to Find a Place. The Pilot Will Run Around the Summer and Should Prove That This Waiting Time Can Be Significantly Reduced.
The New System Uses An Algorithm. The Nursing Homes Must Share Their So-Called Bed Availability with Each Other To Make This Algorithm Work, Says Rob van der Mei To Nu.nl. He is a professor of Applied Mathematics at the VU University Amsterdam and the Center Mathematics & Informatics.
Until now, nursing homes do not share their bed availability. This leads to beds in Multiple Nursing Homes Remoining (Unnecessarily) Empty. This is a waste, as there are approxroximately eighteen thousand people on the waiting list for a place in a nursing home nationwide.
Van der Mei Compares the Algorithm to the Filters Of, For Example, Booking.com. In Advance, People Provide Their preferences and circumstances: from Using a Wheelchair to Bringing a Pet or Having a Preferred Location. “The algorithm calculates in a split second who is quite sent to which nursing home,” Says van der Mei.
Not all requests are processed via the algorithm. Van der Mei Estimates That It Can Be Done in 60 to 80 percent of the cases. For the remaining people, it will still be manuelly determined where they will end up. Accordance to van der Mei, these people fall under the “More complex cases.” They have multiple issues that need to be considered and therefore do not specifically fit with one institution.
It is not the case that the advice of the algorithm is blindly adopted. “At the end of the day, there is always a person who approach or disapproves the allocation in consultation with the patient,” Says van der Mei. So there will be no fully automatic placement. “We could do it, but we like to keep it human.”
Existing Algorithm Used For A New Purpose
Van der Mei Emphasizes That It is a pilot and that the first results still have to proof the positive effect. Yet the Professor Has Confidence in the Outcome.
For Example, The System Itelf is not new, Only the place where it is Used, Says Program Leader Robert Thijssen of Sigra, A Collaboration in Healthcare and Welfare in North Holland.
Sigra Already Drew up a report in 2017 on the Bottlenecks in the Elderly Care sector. This resulted in a pilot in Flevoland where an earlier version of the algorithm was used. The Outcome was a 33 percent decrease in ambulance response time. “That literally saves lives,” Says Thijssen.
“The algorithm from then is the basic for the algorithm that we have now build for the nursing homes,” Thijssen Continues. The System is Now Used For Dolce Vita, A Collaboration Between Various Amsterdam Healthcare Providers.
Healthcare Providers do Not Want Empty Beds
Despite the Human Control at the End, The System Saves a Lot Of Time, Van der Mei States. So much so that it can reduce the current waiting time of two hundreds to fifty days, he expects. The time gained can be spent on the more complex cases. The allocation in general also benefits from this, says the professor.
For the nursing homes, van der May speaks of a win-win situation if they Join the System. Healthcare providers do not want many of their beds to be empty. As a result, they miss out on revenue. The New System Should Ensure That People Have To Wait Less Time For A Place, that Their preferences are listed to, and that the Nursing Homes Themselves have a Higher Occupancy Rate.
Accordance to van der May, there is a lot of interest from the sector. Yet Not Every Institution is Waiting to Share Bed Availability. “Then you give a look into your own system. That’s a bit of cold feet,” the professor Thinks. He hopes to convince other parties of the benefits with the pilot.
‘Good as lung as it doessn’t beeMome’ one size fits all ‘
Kirsten Andres is director of the Elderly Fund and is not direct connected to the pilot. She speaks of a good initiative, because the pressure on elderly care is too great. ” Accordance to Andres, there is not only a shortage of beds, but also as special or healthcare personnel.
Andres Welcomes Technological Solutions Such as the pilot, as long as they take individual wishes into account. It should also not be notary ‘one size fits all’. “We see that turn control of your own life is very important in order not to Become lonely and to Mintain the Quality of Life for As Long As Possible,” Says the Director.