This year Qubiz was present at the Zorg&ICT event in The Netherlands. There was so much going on after the event and so much info and feedback to be put together that we were only now able to write our opinions and our experiences from those days. We were so impressed with what we found there that we believe we owe it to the people who presented there, to share our insights.
The Zorg&ICT event that was held in Utrecht between 27 and 29 of March 2012 was intended as an IT exhibition with the role of bringing together software solution providers and health-care organizations which provide care and coaching.
Usually this kind of event has two kinds of attendees, those who have a stand and are presenting solutions they are providing and those who come to find out about what the formers' have to offer.
The solution providers are represented by IT managers from companies which might have in their services portofolio ECD (electronic client dossier) and EPD (electronic patient dossier), technical solutions for "domotica" - domus+robotica - which includes house appliances which makes a patient's life easier, safer and better cared for and any other services related to ICT that help manage processes from the health-care sector. An example of domotica technical solution is a sensor that detects when the patient falls down.
The visitors of the event are usually middle management people from care providers or umbrella representatives of a group of clinics, hospitals or general practitioners.
One of the main points of discussion this year was the decentralization - until lately care services were organized by the general government, now they are orchestrated by the local government. This means that there is a shift of money from national level to local level, client is better centralized in the suite of care services, focus on clients is done from neighborhood perspective as well.
A second trend this year is the discussion around how to deal with the aging of the population, a concern from financial and startegic point of view.
The last but not least subject was that of the involvement of the patient's so called network; family taking care of their brother, parents, aunt, getting in the patient's dossier and having more to say in the care process.
Qubiz participated at this event as visitor, we gathered information about the latest trends in health-care and what other software suppliers are doing. We talked to care providers to better identify their needs. We tried to better understand what decentralization means for process administrators.
One thing that we noticed was the fact that ICT providers are focusing on the solutions provided instead of focusing on the patients'needs.
After attending the event, Qubiz was able to better understand the ICT solutions offered there. We were also able to identify some leads to companies which could benefit from our services and solutions.
But what we mostly gained from the Zorg&ICT event was the chance to see the broad spectrum of disconnected tools that exist for this sector. This allows us to better position ourselves as a company among the software solution providers. Care providers need a lot of understanding of ICT, understanding how ICT can serve as a means of simplifying processes. Qubiz can and has to take the role of facilitator of care providers getting the necessary knowldge to best exploit what ICT has to offer and to help them organize their IT solutions around business processes.