Alivia is ready for a practical exam. Team manager Thomas looks ahead to the coming months

Thomas, when can we expect a first ready-to-use version of Alivia?

Thomas: “Our first version of Alivia, with basic modules such as drawing up life and care goals, keeping track of care tasks, putting together a care team and sharing messages in a care notebook, has been completed. We will test it out in the coming weeks and improve its user-friendliness. That is the most important task for the coming weeks: increasing user-friendliness, so that every healthcare provider and person requiring care finds it easy to work with Alivia. We will continue to work on this continuously in the further development of Alivia.”

What kind of improvements are these?

“Putting the right buttons and input fields in the right place, where the user expects them. Understandable and concise instructions or labels in the screens. A look-and-feel for both the web and the app version that clearly shows the information… Several people within our Department have already looked at this. We now also ask healthcare providers and people in need of care to give us feedback on this user-friendliness. There will be two test sessions in mid-November, one test session in each pilot region(opens in new window).”

What will happen at the two test sessions in the pilot regions?

“We are going to have Alivia tested by groups of healthcare providers, people in need of care and their informal caregivers. It will be a test with a fictional example of a healthcare situation. By having a care team draw up a fictitious care plan in Alivia, we will experience whether everything is in the right place and works logically. We will then also test the accessibility and user-friendliness of Alivia with other user groups. In the spring of 2024, our two pilot projects will intensively test Alivia in real care situations with real care plans. With all this feedback, we want to offer a version of Alivia in the autumn of 2024 that we are sure works well, is user-friendly and offers added value for the person in need of care and the healthcare provider.”

Will those two test sessions in November, in addition to testing user-friendliness, also test whether Alivia actually offers added value in care planning?

“In any case, we also want feedback about what working with Alivia means for the organization of healthcare and healthcare practice. It is a certainty that an IT instrument for collaboration and care planning can provide added value and is necessary. The demand for such an IT solution comes from the healthcare sectors themselves. At the primary care conferences in recent years, patient representatives and healthcare sectors have explicitly indicated that a well-functioning and secure IT instrument is a prerequisite for more targeted collaboration with and for the patient. We now have to start fleshing out the practical details of how to get started with such an instrument, how to use that instrument in practice. And this must be done in parallel with the technical development of the instrument. You cannot only develop an instrument technically, without also making it clear how it is best used and what the results are.”

Will there be instructions or some kind of handbook on how to make care planning or what organizing targeted care actually entails?

“We are talking about developing a methodology on how to best use the Alivia instrument. Providing a set of instructions or a script doesn’t work. Together with care providers and the person in need of care and support, we will discover how a digital platform, which is based on the life goals of the person in need of care, can best be used to allow the care team to work together. How are we going to translate life goals into a concrete care plan? How are we going to use all technical platforms for this? How are we going to give care coordination and case management a place in a care team? What do we mean by all these concepts? What training do we provide? And very important, who takes on what role, who does what at what time in a care team? The primary care zones with their care councils and VIVEL as an expertise and support organization take on their role to strengthen the networks between healthcare providers. They will also play their role in showing how an instrument like Alivia can further nourish that collaboration and make it very practical.”

What legal anchoring is in the pipeline?

“First there is the adjustment of the first-line decree. This contains two important building blocks. Firstly, we make sure everything is in order to share data with each other. Secondly, the foundation is laid for introducing care coordination and case management. The accompanying implementation decree of that decree on the organization of care will lay down in more detail what targeted care should entail. We will describe basic principles such as working with life goals and care goals, working with care tasks, drawing up a care plan and connecting them to care coordination and case management.”

If you are not involved in the pilot projects, when will you see or be able to use Alivia?

“The pilots will run until autumn 2024. Then we will look at how and where we can gradually broaden and roll out Alivia. This can happen in different ways. We can invite more regions to use Alivia, thus expanding geographically. Or we can start using Alivia in more different types of healthcare situations. And we can also further expand Alivia itself with new functions. We will make those choices in the course of the pilot projects.”

Where are the pilots today?

“An Alivia coach has been started in each pilot region and a consortium has been put together with partners from the various healthcare sectors. They are currently appointing “inclusion officers”. They will attract people in need of care and care teams from their region to test Alivia in the spring and train them. We will have a starting meeting with those responsible on December 7. I see that as the real start of the pilot projects.”

More news from the pilot projects on December 7!