How UZ Gent improved communication and collaboration with a digital workplace

The challenge: the SharePoint of no return

For quite some time, UZ Gent had been using SharePoint 2013 to oversee its intranet and collaborative environments. When Microsoft announced that it would stop supporting that version in 2023, the ICT team embraced this opportunity for change.

“We decided to go for a profound functional upgrade,” says Bernard Fockaert, Head of the ICT Business Applications department at UZ Gent. “We wanted to host the website separately, unlock a more theme-based intranet, and set up a modern digital workplace to improve communication and collaboration. The goal was to provide easy access on any location and device, both internally and externally, but always secure.”

The new solution also had to include customized governance rules and a high level of self-service. “Our sites need to be relevant at all times,” explains Julie Dejaegere, IT Project Manager at UZ Gent. “With new governance parameters, we could – for instance – automatically archive inactive websites.” Moreover, a uniform self-service platform would allow end users to do as much as possible themselves.

The solution: out of the blueprint

UZ Gent teamed up with delaware to turn that vision into reality. A blueprint helped identify all business and IT governance criteria, different types of collaborative environments, and security needs, such as privacy levels for sensitive hospital data.

After finalizing the blueprint, UZ Gent and delaware chose to integrate three applications in Microsoft Teams: My Workspace (the new collaborative environment), Corneel (the new intranet, also accessible by browser), and the Who What Where (the new address book). It gave UZ end users a single point of entry to all their collaborative environments and UZ applications via Single Sign-On.

Throughout the drafting and designing process, the team continued to survey various UZ profiles (doctors, nurses etc.) to make sure the new digital landscape would have all the features they needed. “We closely involved everyone, appointed ambassadors, and made training opportunities available,” adds Tessa Verheecke, Digital Communication Coordinator at UZ Gent. “All those success factors contributed to the smooth roll-out.”

Corneel & The Who What Where

Corneel, the new intranet, introduced a new way of communicating and structuring information. “On the old intranet, all data were visible, even if they didn’t apply to you,” Julie clarifies. “Now, employees can personalize their homepage, highlight their applications, and publish news messages for a specific target audience.” The UZ Wijzer component categorizes all information by means of a convenient tree structure.

The Who What Where, on the other hand, is a customized address book with powerful search filters, fully integrated with the hospital’s personnel files. “We used to have a similar document for all employee and department numbers, but its contents were limited and highly flawed,” says Julie. “The Who What Where provides us with one single source of truth.”

The result: everything in its right place

Ever since the release in May 2023, feedback on the new digital workplace has been overwhelmingly positive. “During the first evaluation round, we actually didn’t have to make a lot of adjustments,” reflects Bernard. “But of course, we still listen to our target audience to discover any remaining must-haves and nice-to-haves.”

“Employees appreciate that they can simply access the platform from home and from multiple devices,” confirms Julie. “Interacting and collaborating has become incredibly straightforward, especially with external partners. Every component has a logical place now, and it’s so much easier to monitor which content people actually need and read.”

Knowing each other insight out

The collaboration between UZ Gent and delaware turned out to be a mutual exchange of learnings and insights. “It’s typical of the delaware culture,” states Julie. “We never had the customer-supplier relationship feeling; it was always a partnership.”

“I would especially like to highlight UZ Gent’s incredible project maturity and the way in which they worked with a service partner,” says Serge Desaranno, Solution Lead Digital Workplace at delaware BeLux. “After the go-live in May, we only had to deal with some fine-tuning issues, but no major problems – remarkable for a project of this size.”

In the meantime, UZ Gent has already presented its digital workplace to a variety of other hospitals, sparking unanimous enthusiasm. “We didn’t just implement a technical tour de force,” concludes Bernard. “It’s a solution that maximally responds to our needs. It just works, and we couldn’t be prouder of the results.”