Caresharing: “More than thinking along with us”
Caresharing develops software that supports every form of collaboration in healthcare. In the early days, the family business focused on integrated care for patients with a chronic condition, today the cBoards platform supports communication and collaboration between all healthcare professionals, patients and informal caregivers. With this, Caresharing successfully competes with large companies with a long history in healthcare ICT.Reliable and transparent
At the start in 2007, the three Rietjens brothers mainly focused on developing the software, says the middle brother and CTO Harm. “When selecting a hosting party, we mainly focused on the more technical aspects. We made the wrong choice and soon found out how important it is that a hosting company is always easily accessible and transparent about work that could potentially lead to downtime.” With this experience under the belt, the then start-up carried out a new selection process in 2011, in which BIT emerged as the winner. “One of the decisive factors was that BIT already worked for several leading healthcare IT software suppliers. At that time, the laws and regulations for handling patient data became increasingly strict. It is good to know that your data center works for multiple parties in the healthcare sector, all of which must comply with specific regulations such as NEN 7510.”
“One of the decisive factors was that BIT already worked for several leading healthcare IT software suppliers. At that time, the laws and regulations for handling patient data became increasingly strict. It is good to know that your data center works for multiple parties in the healthcare sector, all of which must comply with specific regulations such as NEN 7510.”
Constantly challenging each other
Until then, Caresharing was used to making all infrastructural choices itself. Rietjens: “We chose the servers we needed on our own and then said to our hosting partner: please order this and that. However, BIT came up with counter questions: why are you making this choice? Have you thought about this and that? The final solution usually turned out to be different than we could have imagined ourselves. We have learned over the years to rely on their advice, to use them as a sparring partner. I have to be honest: I have come to know a lot of companies, but none that are so good and think along with us to the degree they do.” That is also the reason that today the DevOps team interlinks so much with BIT. “Our developers have such in-depth knowledge about our platform and BIT has so much expertise when it comes to the infrastructure. Their discussions are very in depth. I think it's great to notice that our people feel challenged. Together with BIT, they come up with even better solutions.”
“Our developers have such in-depth knowledge about our platform and BIT has so much expertise when it comes to the infrastructure. Their discussions are very in depth. I think it's great to notice that our people feel challenged. Together with BIT, they come up with even better solutions.”
Considerations when choosing private or public cloud
In addition to BIT's private cloud services, Caresharing sometimes also uses Google Cloud. “Particularly for flexible use of extra capacity, for example a test server. Our production platform runs entirely at BIT and that is a strategic choice. In addition, many people think that the public cloud is cheaper, but that is not always the case. We are cheaper off at BIT. And we also gain all that knowledge.”
No nonsense
Even after ten years, the cooperation between the two companies is still very good, says COO Robbert van Thiel. “BIT is a no-nonsense company, which suits us well. They are also extremely transparent. This is extremely important for our target group – healthcare professionals. We operate in a 24x7 business. It's okay if the platform is down for a while, as long as we let our customers know in advance. The same applies to incidents: if we immediately know that something is going on, we can inform our customers. Fortunately, the latter rarely happens.”
“BIT is a no-nonsense company, which suits us well. They are also extremely transparent. This is extremely important for our target group – healthcare professionals. We operate in a 24x7 business. It's okay if the platform is down for a while, as long as we let our customers know in advance."
Partner in further growth
Caresharing is on the threshold of the next phase. While five years agothe company still had to explain the importance of low-thresholdcollaboration in healthcare, this topic is now on the agenda everywhere.It is a hot topic in every hospital, GP, physiotherapy practice and homecare organization. Van Thiel therefore sees a bright future. “BIT canbuild an additional data center,” he laughs. “We are growing faster than ever before. It is nice to be able to fall back on the expertise and reliability of BIT at this stage of our company. They take a lot of worries off our hands when it comes to infrastructure.”
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