Laurens: Caring for an aging population with integrated organizational data
About Laurens
Laurens is the largest care organization of its kind in Rotterdam, with 30 locations and over 6,000 care professionals. It provides home care, rehabilitation, nursing home care, and palliative care for thousands of older people in the city.
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Xebia
Xebia is a global software engineering and IT consultancy delivering custom-made digital solutions to help businesses work more effectively.
Laurens migrated its data to Google Cloud, giving it a clearer insight into business performance, and allowing it to make strategic decisions to improve efficiencies across departments.
Google Cloud results
- Cuts waiting lists with integrated departmental data
- Saves on empty beds with data insights from BigQuery
- Improves completed registration rate from 40% to 90% with Looker
- Reduces inefficiencies across departments with clear business insights
Reduces waiting lists and empty beds with unified data
The population of the Netherlands is aging fast. In 2022, there was one person aged 65 plus for every three people of working age, up from one in five in 1980. That figure is set to rise to almost one in two by 2040. For the care sector, that means more people to care for, with fewer people to do the work, and with a rising number of care workers in the Netherlands leaving the profession, the challenge is growing.
Care providers are having to get smart about the way they use resources, according to Liselotte Herfst-Visser, Team Manager of BI and Functional Management at Laurens, which cares for thousands of older people in and around Rotterdam. "Staffing is a major challenge," she says. "We have more people in need of care, but fewer people to do the work, plus our funding is under pressure. So we are focusing on digitalization to get the job done with fewer staff."
"Staffing is a major challenge. We have more people in need of care, but fewer people to do the work, plus our funding is under pressure. So we are focusing on digitalization to get the job done with fewer staff."
—Liselotte Herfst-Visser, Team Manager of BI and Functional Management, LaurensThe challenge of planning ahead without a clear view
Laurens now uses Google Cloud data solutions to improve efficiencies across the company and achieve its goals with fewer resources. Previously, Laurens had up to six different on-premises data solutions, each handling their own data sets, leading to silos across the organization. This made it hard for people to access data from other departments, or to combine data to get the insights to make strategic decisions.
"In terms of budgeting, we were only able to see relevant financial data six weeks after the end of each month, so there was a big gap between the information we had and the information we needed," Herfst-Visser explains. "We were only ever able to look backwards in the mirror, and couldn’t see the road ahead, which made it difficult to steer. We needed to be in control of our information."
Choosing the right tool to unlock valuable business data
Herfst-Visser was tasked with leading the modernization of Laurens’ data and business intelligence. Confident that the scalability of Google Cloud would allow the business to continue adding new functionality as it grew, Laurens worked with Google Cloud partner Xebia to trial Looker for business intelligence. Compared to other third-party platforms, Laurens found that Looker, together with BigQuery, offered the easiest and fastest way to use data to get clear business insights.
Making efficient budgeting decisions with integrated data
Laurens began using Google Cloud in late 2021, and had migrated the entirety of its data to BigQuery by November 2022, giving it a single, integrated view of its data from every department.
"Now, there is no delay in our budgeting decisions, as we can run weekly reports," says Herfst-Visser. "Previously, we had to spend money without knowing if we had it. We don’t have that problem any more, because with BigQuery, we are in control of our data and know what funds are available."
Other budgeting issues have been resolved, too. With HR and bed capacity data integrated in BigQuery, the Laurens teams can now query the data, using Looker dashboards to easily understand staff requirements for a particular shift. Before, when a care worker called in sick, the response would be to call a temping agency for a replacement, which was expensive. Now, the HR team can use Google Cloud to see which staff members still have shifts left to work, and can bring them in to cover absentees, reducing additional costs.
In home provision, meanwhile, unified HR and patient data are being used to optimize the routes carers take from one patient’s home to the next, enabling each carer to spend as much time as possible delivering care, rather than traveling.
Refining administrative processes with fast insights
Access to data insights is helping the Laurens teams refine administrative processes too, further reducing inefficiencies. With 30 care locations in and around Rotterdam and thousands of patients to care for, managing bed capacity is a difficult process, and every empty bed costs Laurens money. Now, with patient data and bed capacity data in BigQuery, location managers can quickly match an available bed to a waiting patient, ensuring patients receive care more quickly, while Laurens is able to make the best use of its resources.
"Previously, this information was siloed," explains Herfst-Visser. "So you would have to log into the client system, then wait, because it was a slow system, then call the centralized department and ask how many beds they had available that day, and they’d go off and check. Now, with Looker, it’s just click, click, and you have the insights on your screen in seconds, showing which patients are eligible for which beds—so you can get them in right away."
Patient registration is also being tightened up. Prior to using BigQuery and Looker, only 40% of registrations were complete, with insufficient patient details recorded by the caregiver during admittance. With no clear overview of which forms were incomplete, health insurance companies would often withhold individual payouts until the forms were filled out, wasting administrative time and affecting cash flow. Now, automated alerts in Looker notify the Laurens team about incomplete registrations, while Looker dashboards make it easy to click straight into patient files and make the necessary changes, bringing the rate of completed registrations up to 90%.
Building a data culture with self-service information
With all this data at the company’s fingertips, Herfst-Visser’s team worked closely with Xebia to educate departments across the business on how to access the data, build reports in Looker, and make the most of the information available to them to inform the decisions they make.
"Seeing is believing," says Herfst-Visser. "The more people see what the opportunities are, the more they want to use the data themselves. We’ve got the board behind us. The directors are always looking at the data in Looker. They’re very happy with the insights they can get, and they want more and more. And the more departments are accessing the data themselves, the less they are waiting on our team to provide it for them."
On the right path, with a clear view of the future
As the data culture spreads through the organization, Laurens is already looking at how it can continue to use Google Cloud to improve efficiencies even further. One plan is to integrate data from sensors in the patients’ beds to understand when patients are asleep, or are in need of care, to enable carers to make most efficient use of their time during rounds.
It is precisely this scalability of the platform, combined with the ease of integrating and using data that led to Laurens first choosing Google Cloud. With the ability to continue using data to improve business processes, Herfst-Visser is confident Laurens will be able to provide the best care to its patients as the Netherlands’ population continues to age.
"With quick and easy access to data with Google Cloud, we no longer have to look in our rear mirror to understand where we are," she says. "Instead we can look at the road ahead, and steer our business where we want it to go."
"With quick and easy access to data with Google Cloud, we no longer have to look in our rear mirror to understand where we are. Instead, we can look at the road ahead, and steer our business where we want it to go."
—Liselotte Herfst-Visser, Team Manager of BI and Functional Management, LaurensTell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Laurens
Laurens is the largest care organization of its kind in Rotterdam, with 30 locations and over 6,000 care professionals. It provides home care, rehabilitation, nursing home care, and palliative care for thousands of older people in the city.
About Xebia
Xebia is a global software engineering and IT consultancy delivering custom-made digital solutions to help businesses work more effectively.