Capacity Tracker

If someone can no longer safely live at home, it’s important to quickly find accommodation.

The regional coordination function can help referrers such as GPs and hospitals quickly find accommodation. Based on the availability tracked by organisations for nursing homes, care homes, and homecare, the healthcare coordinator and relevant healthcare professionals gain insight into the healthcare providers’ capacity for long-term and short-term accommodation. This means healthcare organisations in the region will quickly find suitable accommodation and help the patient faster.

The definition of the coordination function differs per region. Transfer departments try their hardest to organise the right homecare or nursing home care when patients are discharged from hospital.

The GP is another important link in the partnership between all parties for direct referrals and organising first-line accommodation. Sometimes nursing homes, care homes and homecare provide the coordination function themselves (virtually), or it may be provided by the care centre or the medical service centre.

As an example from the Netherlands, the coordination function for accommodation is increasingly combined with the ambulance dispatch centre, GP services (HAP) and the crisis centre of the mental health institution in the form of a regional coordination point (ReCo) or healthcare coordination centre (ZCC). This facilitates contact between several disciplines and a fast decision-making process to provide patients with the right place for the right care.