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Rivas implemented the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) in 2001, in order to be able to monitor results in relation to the strategic goals. Rivas selected Bizzscore as software solution to support the balanced scorecards. After a pilot, the Balanced Scorecard was implemented as part of the planning and control cycle. Bizzscore was contributed being a major success factor in the implementation process.
The Organization
The Rivas Care group operates in the region Gorinchem and Leerdam in the Netherlands with 26 different locations. The Rivas Care Group is the result of a number of mergers between Healthcare institutions (hospitals, nursing homes and rest homes) and Healthcare services (home care, child welfare and welfare work). Rivas consists of 5200 employees and approximately 1000 voluntary workers that provide services to patients 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
Because one single provider is offering all different care services, Rivas can provide its patients with tailor made services. Besides, Rivas works more efficiently by not restraining their patients to make separated appointments with their insurance company for different care institutions.
The Cause
In 2001, the Dutch Minister of Public Health, Minister Borst, appointed the Rivas Care group as participant of the “transmural” care experiment (TEx). Transmural care is the name given to care provided in cooperation between both general and specialist care providers. The main purpose of this experiment was to find solutions for obstacles between the National Health Service and AWBZ-care.
The AWBZ is a law, which insures every Dutch citizen of long term health care and support. The abbreviation stands for General Law regarding Special Medical expenses. In the Netherlands health care is financed in two different ways. On the one hand the National Health Service and private medical expenses insurance and on the other hand the AWBZ-care. Medical care belongs to the first compartment and home care to the second one. As an experiment from the 1st of January the Minister of Health gave Rivas permission to offer care without taking into account problems which would arise from this complex structure.
Throughout the Rivas organization, people knew about the usage of the BSC in Great Britain, where the National Health Service successfully developed a blueprint of the BSC-model for the medical sector. This created an internal desire to monitor results as to the set of strategic objectives in the annual plan of Rivas. Besides internal wishes, the urge for the implementation of the Balanced Scorecard was also based on a national trend requiring results of care providers to be transparent for the greater public. So Rivas wanted to implement benchmarking within and among different sectors and both internally and externally. As external benchmarks the measurements by the weekly magazine “Elsevier” and the daily newspaper “Algemeen Dagblad” could be used. For these reasons and considering the opportunity of the TEx pilot given by the minister, Rivas decided to start working with the BSC and was supported in doing so by iBMG, consultants of the Erasmus University.
The Challenge
Initially Rivas started working with on a combination of an annual operational plan and the BSC in one format. This led to indicators that were more focused on the implementation of activities instead of measuring results of those activities. It was hard to monitor the progress of the performance indicators, due to the poor definitions.
In corporation with iBMG a selection procedure was started to find a standard software application that would allow the balanced scorecards being more accurate and more frequent. Bizzscore was chosen among various competing suppliers of standard software to measure the client’s cycle within the TEx. Being able to enter actions and improvement plans in the solution have been of great importance for selecting Bizzscore, next to the visual and functional benefits as well as the scalability.
The Implementation
After the successful pilot, Bizzscore was implemented as part of the planning and control cycle. Next to measuring financial and operational indicators in Bizzdata, Bizzquality was used to quantify the satisfaction rate of patients and staff. The scorecards in Bizzscore were implemented on different levels: Rivas Care group, Sectors, Districts and Services. The required data was retrieved from many different sources. Reports were published on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis.
The Business benefits
Bizzscore improved the reporting of the BSC, during both the TEx pilot and the roll out within Rivas. Cor van Vlaanderen, head of Bureau Care Innovation, comments: “Bizzscore led to better, faster and more transparent monitoring of the realized progression as to the strategic objectives”. Cor van Vlaanderen stipulates the role Bizzscore has played in the successful implementation of the BSC. He observes: “The usage of Bizzscore pointed us to the imperative condition of having standard performance management software in place to support the implementation of the BSC at a care provider like us”.
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