Group of Thomashuizen opts for Medimo thanks to cluster cooperation

A successful collaboration has enabled a group of Thomashuizen to transition to Medimo’s medication management platform. One of the driving forces behind this transition is Henk de Jong from the Thomashuis in Ouderkerk aan den IJssel, who brought together 15 colleagues from other Thomashuizen. Since October 2024, they’ve been using Medimo within a cluster – and it’s safe to say the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

“Medimo works perfectly and is easy to use,” says Henk de Jong, clearly pleased. “Before we started, I didn’t think it would actually make things quicker, since it also takes time to get it up and running. But now that we’ve been using it for a while, I do think it ultimately saves time – partly thanks to the simple medication ordering process. It also aligns with what you’d expect from a professional organisation, and it’s definitely more reliable. If the Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate (IGJ) carries out an inspection, you can easily show how medication safety is being monitored.”

Henk de Jong at the Thomashuis where he and his family provide a home for nine mentally disabled people.

Franchise

Thomashuis is the name of a franchise model through which entrepreneurs establish their own small-scale residential facilities for adults with learning disabilities. Often located in attractive, welcoming settings – such as farms or other distinctive properties – each Thomashuis accommodates nine residents, supported by professional staff. The owners live alongside the residents, creating a warm, homely atmosphere and enabling the delivery of high-quality, small-scale care. The model was launched in 2003 and today there are nearly 120 Thomashuizen locations across the Netherlands.

Cost-effectiveness

While the small scale is a strength, the limited number of clients often makes it financially unviable to invest in a software package like Medimo. However, that’s precisely where collaboration shows its value. After all, what if several of these facilities adopted the system collectively?

Henk de Jong from Thomashuis in Ouderkerk was fully on board with the idea and is happy to explain how everything came together. “At one point, I was introduced to the idea of a digital solution, and that’s when I started looking into it. Before we launched a Thomashuis, I worked as an application manager, so I thought: how complicated can it be? If it’s a good product, it should be manageable. I was actually quite keen to take on the project. Since Medimo requires a minimum of 50 clients to make it worthwhile, we needed to find other Thomashuizen that were willing to join. A quick message in the group chat for all Thomashuizen quickly brought together several colleagues who were eager to take part.”

From application manager to key contact and lead advocate

Henk de Jong of Thomashuis Ouderkerk brought Thomashuizen together to use Medimo.

“We explained that we were going to compare two solutions, and around fifteen colleagues immediately showed interest. Cora van der Knaap from Thomashuis Herpen already had experience with Medimo, so she was able to share a lot of insight. Thanks to Medimo’s flexibility and the ability to set up a cluster, we ultimately decided to take the plunge. Now, together with Cora, I serve as both application manager and point of contact for Medimo, while also acting as something of a lead advocate for the collaboration project. We started in October with 15 houses, and 4 more have joined since then.”

One lead administrator for all participating Thomashuizen

A Thomashuis is essentially an independent private limited company (BV), so to enable joint use of Medimo, one Thomashuis must have an owner willing to take on the role of administrator. It made perfect sense for Henk de Jong to take on that responsibility. “Together with Cora van der Knaap from Thomashuis Herpen, I’ve played a major role in promoting the use of Medimo in the Thomashuis network. We effectively act as the lead administrator, while each participating Thomashuis has its own point of contact with the necessary access rights. Each Thomashuis then operates within its own separate environment.

Een Thomashuis is feitelijk een zelfstandige BV, dus om gezamenlijk gebruik van Medimo mogelijk te maken, moet er één Thomashuis zijn waarvan de eigenaar zich opwerpt als beheerder. Het lag voor de hand dat Henk de Jong dat op zich nam. “Samen met Cora van der Knaap van Thomashuis Herpen ben ik eigenlijk de aanjager van het gebruik van Medimo voor Thomashuizen. Wij zijn als het ware de hoofdbeheerder, en dan heeft elk aangesloten Thomashuis een eigen aanspreekpunt die de benodigde rechten heeft. Elk Thomashuis heeft dan zijn eigen omgeving.

Hufterproof

So what’s so good about Medimo? Although it was a bit nerve-wracking for De Jong at first, it quickly proved to be worthwhile. “As the administrator, I’m the one who receives questions from the other Thomashuizen. Of course, I do have back-up from Enovation Medimo, but our support hours are limited. What really stood out though was how few questions we received, simply because everything works so well. When I set up a new house and assign the rights, everything more or less runs itself. You could say it’s virtually foolproof.”

Simple

“When a Thomashuis wants to join, I arrange one video call to explain how to add users and residents – and they can easily take care of that themselves. Then I prepare everything for importing the pharmacy data. The Thomashuis calls their own pharmacy to let them know it’s ready, the pharmacy sees that in their system, and once things are up and running, I usually don’t hear from them again. That’s always a good sign, isn’t it? That’s what I really like about Enovation Medimo: it’s incredibly user-friendly. Not everyone in care is confident with IT, but that’s no problem at all. And when we rolled it out, the transition went incredibly smoothly. We had initially planned a two-week trial run on paper as a precaution, but after just one week, things were running so well that we decided to stop using paper altogether.”

Timing

It makes perfect sense that more and more Thomashuizen are becoming interested in digital medication administration. “The Thomashuis concept started about 20 years ago. Our residents are getting older, which means they need more medication – and what began as a small medicine cabinet has grown considerably over time. Managing this sort of thing digitally is simply the norm nowadays, and while there are those still using paper lists, you can really see the growing demand for digital solutions.”
“Since we started, I occasionally receive messages from colleagues telling me how happy they are with Medimo. They say it’s a reliable and user-friendly system, and that they’re glad to be rid of the paperwork.” Interested in joining? We’d love to hear from you – give us a call or drop us an email.