Taking steps together to get a better grip on life - Cosis bets on Copilot

There is healthy competition in healthcare: everyone wants something to do with artificial intelligence (AI). Basically, how can you use it to contribute more to healthcare to reduce burdens? With AI, you don't want to jump into the deep end unprepared, but you certainly don't want to be the last organization to step in, either. The progressive Cosis dared to take the plunge and is one of the first in the care for the disabled to roll out Copilot on a large scale. Jordy Zinkstok, Product Owner AI, talks about what Cosis is doing and how Copilot is contributing to the care they provide.

“AI is not going away anymore”
Cosis is a healthcare organization that helps people with intellectual and/or mental disabilities get a grip on life. "We support broadly 8,000 clients through residential counseling, heavy intensive care, outpatient and child, youth and family support. We do this in the entire region from Overijssel to Wadden Sea," Jordy kicks off. As is the case with most care providers, the central question for Cosis is: how can we contribute more to basic care? For example, with reduced administrative burdens, time savings, more hands at the bedside or less strain on care workers. And that's how Copilot came around the corner. "We didn't specifically start Copilot; we didn't start looking for a product. However, we did start back in 2023 with the recognition that generative AI is not going away."

Vision and strategy for the best choice

From that idea, a target group study was conducted by an outside party. "That was about products that were on the market at the time. Copilot came only months later." Jordy bit into it. "We started trying licenses, exploring what we could do with them. And discovering: how does it compare to other products in the market? What will be our vision and strategy?" Chosen was a Microsoft side-by-side vision. "We see Microsoft as a trusted partner. Also because we see great support for Copilot in Microsoft's various apps. Apart from being a chatbot, it can help you with PowerPoint, drafting emails, scheduling meetings and so on. We are committed to developing and supporting with Copilot. All in all, we are quite progressive and we see the added value. So we want to be educated and trained to do this well."

Forerunners and Copilot

During the Vision & Value workshop - funded by Microsoft - Wortell helped figure out the art of the possible. These are scenarios on which to plot Copilot, the degree to which the technical environment is ready, including security, data and management. Wortell issued a recommendations report, and from then on Cosis employees stepped in at their own pace. "Our development team picked this up. We looked in our own network: who would we like to have in there? And put out our feelers ourselves." Then started the Flight Academy, to train people and help ambassadors in their roles. "We have a total of 4,500 colleagues, so we depend on our ambassadors to share knowledge. The Flight Academy trained two groups of 25 colleagues from all levels of the organization. We did this as mixed as possible: from breadth, different care locations, regions, executives, team coordinators, supervisors, business support staff, marketing, HR, everything is in there. This is a group with knowledge, actually the forerunners of Copilot. We want to involve precisely these ambassadors so they can inspire their own environment and carry the community."

Rising line in knowledge and quality

The latest Center of Excellence - the umbrella group - shared initial findings from Copilot. "The level of knowledge about Copilot has risen well, according to the reflection of colleagues. There is also a dip in that, which is logical: you start out unconsciously incompetent, become consciously incompetent and then you get to consciously competent. Anyway, there has been a nice increase in the group. You can tell by the enthusiasm." It also shows in the numbers: at the beginning, 15% of the colleagues indicated that their knowledge and skills about Copilot were average or higher. After the Flight Academy, this percentage is at 67%. Actually, the principle with Copilot is simple: ask a question and you'll get an answer. But how you construct and ask such a question determines the quality of its use. In practice, for example, a behavioral scientist finds that he saves 80% of time by using Copilot to prepare texts and ask questions when setting up a WLZ application. "Colleagues see that it produces nice discussions, also among themselves. At first there was some doubt and people just had to 'see what it would do.' Meanwhile, many questions are being asked in the community and colleagues are also meeting outside the sessions. The difficulty in healthcare is keeping people hooked. Now it's up to us to keep this up properly. In that respect, the Flight Academy was just the starting point; now we are really getting started."

Making the world a better place

Wortell's advice to Cosis? Ensure continued use of Copilot with licenses for new users, set up an AI group of ambassadors and actively support users with sessions and success stories. Also part of the advice are a study on linking with ONS, continuous feedback collection through low-threshold channels and an evaluation after six months. "We have now trained 50 people and issued 343 licenses - that is growing by the day. We expect to pass 400 licenses by the end of the year." Meanwhile, the development team will explore what initiatives can be rolled out. "For example, we are creating a food app focused on healthy eating and cooking on location. We are doing this with Copilot Studio (Agent). We engaged Wortell to help us with this." A webinar has also been set up for the wide use of Copilot within Cosis; based on the Flight Academy. An intranet page has also been set up with information about Copilot for colleagues to take with them: including news, developments and instructions. "I don't feel the need to license a thousand colleagues. We want to make the world easier and better for our people and clients. Copilot can contribute to that. If I save an hour somewhere as a knowledge worker, I have already earned back the license. What really matters are the colleagues who provide care and who have those hours as a gain: less administration, less writing, co

Report without a keyboard

"It's clear what Wortell can help with and vice versa I can ask a question and Wortell helps me with it. My request was to train ambassadors, a group that I can leverage to grow the rest of Cosis with me. Wortell thought along, offered a package, fine-tuned it where necessary and deployed it this way. This is how our future collaboration will be as well: bringing knowledge and information together. That is the most important thing Wortell does for us; what we do together. As a partnership." In choosing Copilot, Cosis had one big advantage: it is supported from the board. "That's necessary to move forward. What I would prefer is that the caregiver walks around with a tool, gets the right information at the right time (from the EPC or ECD), goes through the goals with the client, delivers the care and at the end of the day processes everything in a structured way in a file based on text-based reporting. Without having seen a keyboard. That's how Copilot works for us, so we can do what's important: deliver care, despite all the mandatory administration."

Tips for other healthcare organizations

• Jordy concludes with tips for other healthcare organizations that want to get started with Copilot:
• Be aware of laws and regulations: what are you being judged on? What is really needed? And how can you use Copilot for this?
• Starting is accelerating. Once people in the organization are working with Copilot, then it will come to life more with others. Just after posting an intranet message, I was asked at different locations to give a training session and share information. That creates movement.
• You have to get and keep people involved: that's one thing. When you get together with a group of colleagues to discover what Copilot means for healthcare, then enthusiasm develops.
• Just go and do it. Don't get too hung up on whether you're doing it all right. Make a plan, try it out and make adjustments if necessary.