An innovative partnership for Dutch healthcare

Today we are particularly proud to announce our latest partnership: OurMind's AI technology is being integrated into BeterDichtbij, the national communication service for the healthcare sector. This pioneering collaboration makes OurMind's digital healthcare colleagues available to thousands of healthcare professionals throughout the Netherlands.

As the first in the Netherlands, generative AI is being deployed on this scale for patient communication. Our AI assistants take over small, common tasks from healthcare professionals, such as sharing practical information in preparation for a consultation and asking for additional information regarding medical complaints.

Built by and for healthcare professionals

At OurMind, we firmly believe in the principle "built with doctors, not just for them." Paul Koning, our co-founder, explains:

"We always develop new functionalities together with the client and medical specialists, because we believe that those who perform the work should also shape the tools. Together with BeterDichtbij, our AI agents are increasingly taking over administrative work, giving healthcare providers more time for patient care."

This philosophy is fully reflected in this partnership. Healthcare professionals and their organizations remain in control: they decide for themselves how and when they deploy our digital colleague and which tasks it performs. In a prompt drawn up by and with doctors, they define exactly how the AI communication should proceed, after which our technology puts this into practice.

Sander Bijl, operational director of BeterDichtbij, shares this vision:

"The intelligence and technology are available, the main question is: how do we ensure impact together? Based on the scale on which BeterDichtbij is used in Dutch healthcare, and the value we offer every day for patients and their healthcare professionals, we see that opportunity. Driven by carefulness, of course, and by continuing to learn from each other."

The benefits of our AI assistants

For healthcare professionals, this partnership will soon mean a significant reduction of their workload:

• Fewer repetitive tasks: administrative tasks are taken over, so that there is more time for direct patient care

• Improved patient guidance: faster responses and more consistent information provision

• Complete control: healthcare professionals decide for themselves when and how AI is deployed

• Easy handover: where necessary, the healthcare professional can act immediately based on the collected information

For patients, this means faster help with questions, whereby it is always clearly indicated when they are communicating with an AI assistant versus their own healthcare provider.

Careful testing, learning together

We are currently testing various applications together with BeterDichtbij and medical specialists in the Netherlands. These applications range from practical support (information about parking, hospital routes) to more care-related applications (retrieving basic data, preparing consultations and summarizing information for the patient).

Carefulness is paramount here. In this phase, we do not use any content from communication data of the BeterDichtbij platform to train our AI further. It is also explicitly not the intention that our digital colleague will provide substantive medical advice to patients – we focus purely on facilitating communication and reducing administrative burdens.

The relationship is central

Bijl emphasizes an important point that we at OurMind fully support:

"If we use AI strategically, it can support healthcare professionals in their communication with patients and give more space to the relationship. That power of the relationship is what we continue to build upon at BeterDichtbij. That relationship and the trust within it are of essential importance and you cannot replace them, but you can support them with this type of intelligence. And that is how we make the work of healthcare professionals more fun and easier, and give more space for their own craftsmanship."

This fits perfectly with our mission at OurMind: we want to use AI to strengthen the human side of healthcare, not to replace it. By taking over repetitive tasks, we create space for healthcare professionals to excel in what they do best: delivering personal, human-centered care.

Want to know more?

Are you a healthcare professional and do you want to know more about how OurMind's AI assistants can support your daily activities? Please contact us for a demonstration without obligation.

About OurMind

OurMind is an AI organization for healthcare, founded in 2024 by health tech entrepreneurs together with Dutch general practitioners and medical specialists. Today, hundreds of healthcare professionals in the Netherlands are already using OurMind for automated medical documentation, patient summaries and translations, leaving more time for patients.

About BeterDichtbij

BeterDichtbij is the national communication service, owned by the Dutch healthcare sector itself. More than 30,000 healthcare professionals use BeterDichtbij to streamline their communication, thereby providing better guidance to patients (BeterDichtbij Patient) and collaborating successfully with their partners in the region (BeterDichtbij Colleague).