Health care

Years of collaboration between UMCG and Spark

In mid-2024, University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) and Spark Narrowcasting renewed their long-term cooperation. The UMCG will also continue to use Spark Narrowcasting's services in the coming years.

About UMCG
The UMCG is one of the largest hospitals in the Netherlands and is the largest employer in the Northern Netherlands. Its more than 12,000 employees work together on care, research, training and education with the common goal: building the future of health.

Project
Spark Narrowcasting is deployed throughout the UMCG, from the outpatient clinics and departments to the teaching institute and the central medical library. Because of the deployment in various departments, the demand for what is possible with our narrowcasting application is diverse, but also often innovative. Together with the UMCG and others, we have been able to further develop our application to where we are today. We are regularly asked by the UMCG to investigate whether certain wishes of the users can be realized.

At the UMCG, we have hung information screens of various sizes. These include basic screens from 43 to 55 inches, stretched screens or screens on a trolley.

Various links
Together and for the UMCG, we have created various links. There are links with:

• EPIC: Spark retrieves patient calls directly from EPIC. This information is displayed on the screen, including the room where they are expected. Spark can guarantee that the link is 100 percent secure. At the UMCG, an application has been built internally that processes the data. This data remains on its own server, and thus within the hospital, to ensure security.

• Ultimo: Data from Ultimo is displayed on the screen so that you can immediately see whether the key for a room that has been reserved has been retrieved. In addition, the overview shows which rooms are reserved or available.

• Data set: Views are displayed from the data set with:

• • Room occupancy (overview of which rooms are still free)
  • Appointment history (patient, staff member, day, start time)
  • Consultation (room, specialist, practitioner, waiting time)

• Google Calendar: Showing appointments.

Push functionality
In response to wishes from the UMCG and the University of Groningen to more easily place slides in multiple channels, we held several discussions to meet these needs. We worked with them to investigate exactly what was needed and how we could realize this within the Spark application. This led to the development and implementation of the push functionality.

House style
In addition to the UMCG's distinctive house style, we incorporated additional elements for certain departments in consultation with the UMCG. The Beatrix Children's Hospital added unique details to the slide layouts so that the information on the screens is also attractive for children to read.

Jubilee Year 2022-2023
The UMCG was founded in 1797 and in 2022 it existed 225 years. In the period 2022-2023, attention has been paid to the history of the UMCG. Two large LED screens were hung at the UMCG's main entrance and coffee corner. Spark Narrowcasting gave a custom slide layout for the LED screens in the new corporate identity as a gift to UMCG for the anniversary.

Findings UMCG
_{Heleen Dijkhuis (Product Owner Intranet / Communicatieadviseur)}
"Spark Narrowcasting means more to us than a service provider. We really see it as a cooperation partner and we are very happy that we can continue this cooperation in the future. For a good number of years Spark has been thinking along with us about the best possible solutions for informing our patients and employees via digital signage. Contacts with Spark are always quick, friendly and personal and the Spark team is characterized by not thinking in limitations, but in possibilities. This fits very well with the values of the UMCG."

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