Healthcare professionals operating on a patient
Read Time, 5 min.

In times of crisis, an organization looks to its leadership for guidance.

As COVID-19 spread through Europe in early 2020, Maasstad Ziekenhuis Hospital CEO Peter Langenbach had planned to lead his hospital’s crisis response as he would any other – being present and visible, leadership traits instilled in him during his time in the Dutch Air Force.

“But as we went into lockdown, I started to develop symptoms myself and had to self-isolate,” he says.

“I was very frustrated – suddenly having to manage the hospital from home. But two things came out of this period. One, I understood what my other self-isolating colleagues were going through, and how hard it was for them to be away when they wanted to help.

“And secondly, I quickly had to get hands on with the new remote working tools we put in place, which gave me a unique perspective as CEO.”

These tools were part of Maasstad’s COVID-19 response plan to swiftly implement social distancing measures – without reducing patient care.

A forward-thinking institute

Based in Rotterdam, Maasstad Ziekenhuis is one of the Netherland’s largest Top Clinical Hospitals, providing acute care to over 450,000 patients each year, and research and education to medical students from across the region.

With a high focus on patient care, the hospital has collaborated with Microsoft on a number of innovations that help support value-based healthcare and shared decision making – an approach where both patient and doctor decide on treatment plans together. A trial of collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams and Surface Hubs were planned for later in 2020, but as COVID-19 struck and social distancing measures were imposed by the government in February, their timeline had to be drastically moved up.

“We needed to keep the hospital at a high capacity without compromising the health of our clinicians or patients,” explains Langenbach. “Along with a safe and secure way for staff to communicate and work remotely, so we could all respond quickly as the situation developed.”

With Microsoft Teams already identified as the solution, it was up to the IT department to rapidly implement the new system.

What would normally take 6-9 months, the IT department was able to deliver in days. This was a great success considering all the technical aspects and governance related to delivering this solution.

Adopting a digital solution

In a matter of days, Maasstad had Microsoft Teams in place and adopted a three-phase approach to COVID-19 – manage the crisis, rebuild and stabilize, and lastly adapt to the new normal.

“We are now in the middle of the rebuild phase,” says Langenbach. “Using Teams, we were able to find safer ways to communicate and continue treating patients, so now it’s about maintaining that and adapting to this new reality.”

Staff at Maasstad have also been encouraged to work remotely where they can. “By the third week we were having hourly meetings using Teams to keep everyone up-to-speed,” he recalls. “It meant that even if people had to stay home, they could still be part of the conversation.

“This was especially important for our daily Crisis Management team meetings,” he adds. “We couldn’t risk everyone being in the same place and all falling ill, so using Teams and a Surface Hub, we were able to remotely collaborate between our offices or homes and a central meeting room – ensuring the hospital’s progress was kept on track.”

The benefits of distance healthcare

For Maasstad Ziekenhuis, this fast response has helped keep staff and patients safe across the hospital, most importantly in the COVID-19 department – a closed off area where protective equipment must always be worn and immediately disposed of when you leave.

“In the first few weeks of lockdown, protective equipment was very scarce,” explains Langenbach. “We had a shortage of masks – and that meant we had to be incredibly careful about making sure we were being as efficient as possible.

“With Teams, we could securely communicate with key doctors or surgeons in this area, without them needing to leave and spend time getting protected all over again. It helped us restrict this department to just the necessary people, making it safer for everyone and overall use fewer gloves and masks.”

This approach also helped the hospital safely carry out their ‘top hundred’ meeting – a regular collaboration between directors, managers and team leaders. Instead of everyone sitting together, the meeting is hosted virtually via Microsoft Teams and a Surface Hub, with attendees breaking into smaller groups to discuss different priorities.

“I could dip into each of these virtual meetings and be part of the conversation, then five minutes later join the next one,” says Langenbach. “It was a great solution to keep this important meeting in the calendar, and the Surface Hub helped us easily collate everyone’s thoughts – as if we were all collaborating in the same room.”

Adapting to a new reality

As the hospital now moves towards its final phase, this new system has received an overwhelmingly positive response from clinical staff – making Peter confident that it still has a greater role to play in how Maasstad offers care in the future.

“We’re already making plans for life beyond COVID-19,” he says. “Coming back to value-based healthcare: if we can get at least 40% of outpatients using virtual consultations through Teams, we can treat them more efficiently going forward with the same strict privacy and security we would guarantee inside the hospital.”

At a challenging and confusing time for the healthcare sector, Maasstad Ziekenhuis’s rapid response has shown us how technology can help everyone adapt when our most basic rights are restricted – and that even essential skills that doctors and nurses offer could soon be readily available from the comfort of your home.

Photographer: Robin Utrecht

Teams for Healthcare Adoption Guide

Learn more about how Teams is transforming the way hospitals can interact and communicate.

Discover more related articles per industry:

Education

  • Cloud

    A guide to GDPR for universities

    With the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation coming into effect on May 25, understand how universities like yours can take the right steps towards compliance with this free eBook – and other useful resources. Your university on a journey on a journey Your university is on a journey with lots of ‘data subjects’. They’re […]

  • Pencil

    Hybrid learning and GDPR: maintaining security and compliance in disruptive times

    Like most areas of society, over the past six months the education sector has had to face challenges unlike any before. Students thrive when they have access to personalized learning. As schools have moved quickly to adapt to remote learning, using technology to create new experiences that meet students’ needs has become more important than […]

Government

Healthcare

  • a woman standing in front of a screen

    Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta: providing essential patient care from a distance

    “Telehealth was a technology we’d been planning to implement for a couple of years. But then almost overnight everything changed – it became a must-have platform the hospital needed today.” Francesca De Giorgi, CIO of Italian research hospital IRCCS Carlo Besta, reflects on the recent challenges her team faced when social distancing measures imposed by […]

  • Two female healthcare professionals looking at a tablet

    Virtual Care webinar

    A discussion of the Virtual Care solutions made possible by Microsoft Teams – brought to life by a case study in Italy.

Manufacturing

Retail

  • HeadBrands is ready for the future with Microsoft 365 Business

    HeadBrands is ready for the future with Microsoft 365 Business

    Since its creation in 2010, HeadBrands has continued to grow, rapidly becoming the leading retailer of hairdressing products in Scandinavia. HeadBrands needed a modern IT solution to increase its business productivity and improve collaboration, both within the company and externally. Its response to this challenge was to replace most of its previous services with Microsoft […]

  • Picture from the back of a person attending a Teams meeting with 2 colleagues, discussing about a furniture fabric.

    Zuiver: Supporting both business and culture through technology

    “Since moving to the cloud, there are no limitations anymore. And I’m certain without this technology, we would not have seen the growth we have today.” Jaap Landsaat, CFO and Head of IT at Dutch furniture designer Zuiver, is talking about the profound impact technology has had on the business he co-founded more than 20 years ago. “Back then, we had 100 orders a week […]

Discover more related articles per dossier:

Customer Stories

  • NorthWest Clinics building

    Northwest Clinics: A new era in virtual healthcare

    “I am generally quite modest – I don’t like to brag about my achievements too much. But in this case, I want to make an exception. I want to tell the world what we have done.” For Ed de Myttenaere, CIO at Northwest Clinics hospital (Noordwest Ziekenhuisgroep) in the Netherlands, breaking with tradition is becoming increasingly normal. In responding to the COVID-19 outbreak, his team have implemented a virtual consultation solution that has the potential to redefine […]

Digital Transformation

  • a person preparing food in a kitchen

    Humanitas-DMH: empowering key workers with a secure digital support

    “Our goal is to create an environment where people with mental disabilities can feel safe, secure and happy.” Marcella van Kraaij, Digital Transformation Advisor at Dutch healthcare provider Humanitas-DMH, is discussing her organization’s key objectives – and how the technology her team recently adopted is helping it to achieve them. Every day, the carers and […]

Security & Privacy

  • Two people sitting and standing in front of a computer

    How to disarm the threat of Shadow IT

    One of the biggest threats to business security comes from within. Are you equipped to deal with the threat of shadow IT? Microsoft’s extensive Work Reworked report shows that with change becoming the new norm for businesses everywhere, the challenges to security lie not just from outside the organisation but also from within. Throwing open […]

Tips

  • Small business team collaborating in modern workplace.

    5 ways to keep employees engaged and productive

    Your business will never possess a more powerful competitive advantage than your employees. Are you making the right choices to take full advantage of that value — or even to hang on to it? Help your employees stay engaged, satisfied and productive Just 13% of global workers are highly engaged and highly satisfied with their […]