How Bravis optimally supports employees during and after software implementations

Bravis is a hospital in West Brabant with 2,700 employees. With main locations in Bergen op Zoom and Roosendaal, five Bravis points, and a outpatient clinic in Etten-Leur, they provide high-quality care. By pooling knowledge and expertise, the organization emphasizes its focus on collaboration with healthcare providers, insurers, and patients. Nowadays, investments in software applications play an increasingly important role in optimizing service delivery and various collaborations. To maximize the value of these software applications, Bravis is actively working to enhance the digital skills and self-sufficiency of its employees.

Within Bravis, there has long been a need to support employees differently in using software applications. In previous software implementations, employees were supported with self-made instructions in the form of Word documents containing screenshots and accompanying text. Carin Bolders, Advisor for Software Implementations at Bravis, explains why this approach was far from ideal:

“Our method of creating and maintaining instructions was a time-consuming process. We noticed that the instructions were initially written with enthusiasm, but they were hardly used. People forgot that the instructions existed, and resistance among the administrators of the instructions to create and maintain them grew.”

Due to the challenges in instructing employees, Bravis was unable to enable them to work independently and effectively with software applications. The acquisition of SelfGuide for software instructions resolved all the pain points for both employees and instruction administrators.

The organization-wide implementation of AFAS was the first project at Bravis where SelfGuide was actively utilized. One of the success factors of a software implementation at Bravis is effectively instructing users. Katja Hop, Functional Administrator at Bravis, explains the role of SelfGuide in this process"

“During the AFAS implementation, key users created instructions with SelfGuide. Where this used to take us several weeks during an implementation, we were now able to do it alongside other project tasks. We didn't have to set aside time for creating instructions, which had previously been a time-consuming process.”

The significant advantage for Bravis was that more focus could now be placed on the implementation itself. Ultimately, this ensured that both the technical and functional aspects progressed smoothly in the eyes of the project participants.

For AFAS users within Bravis, the instructions were available in one clear and central location. Additionally, instructions were always created in the same user-friendly SelfGuide format. Carin Bolders and Katja Hop share the following:

“We received a lot of positive feedback from the organization about the user-friendly format. There were virtually no questions about the functionality of SelfGuide and the instructions created. Users can always and everywhere follow a SelfGuide instruction step-by-step to see which actions need to be performed.”

AFAS instruction administrators also no longer want to be without SelfGuide. Within AFAS, adjustments are made regularly, which means instructions also need to be updated. In addition to creating instructions quickly, maintaining them is also simple. Katja Hop increasingly hears from colleagues, “I’ll quickly create or update an instruction in SelfGuide to share it with everyone” whenever there’s a change in a software application.

During the AFAS implementation, many employees at Bravis were already introduced to SelfGuide, and this will only continue to grow in the future. In upcoming projects related to software applications, there is always consideration of whether SelfGuide will add value. This fosters further integration within the organization. Carin Bolders shares that this process is happening organically:

“Colleagues who haven't even been officially introduced to SelfGuide are already providing positive feedback about its use. This confirms that we made a good choice in adopting SelfGuide”

Meanwhile, the service desk has also actively started using SelfGuide. The service desk utilizes instructions to address the most common user questions regarding software applications.