Vitec Raisoft and the Swiss company BESA QSys have been working closely together for well over 20 years.
The root cause of this smooth, strong, and ever-deepening collaboration can be summed up in a single word: People! People – and the continuity of people.
When the collaboration began in 2002, both companies had only a handful of employees. Today, Vitec Raisoft employs nearly 70 people, and BESA QSys employs just over 50. While many team members have changed over time, there are still people on both sides who have worked together for 10–20 years.
In mid-May, a core group from BESA QSys – those working with the RAIsoft software and the ePDoc care documentation module customized for Switzerland – spent a few days at Vitec Raisoft in Kokkola. Coffee break conversations often revolved around the Ice Hockey World Championship and the Eurovision Song Contest, which was hosted in Switzerland. The Swiss guests’ preconception of Finns being quiet and reserved didn’t quite hold up in Kokkola!
Although the healthcare systems in Switzerland and Finland are very different, a shared understanding and desire to do good has always been strong.
– Working with Vitec Raisoft is easy. We talk a lot and we have a shared goal. We support one another, and it's a given that the end user and customer are always at the center of what we do, summarizes Christine Papilloud-Rey, head of products and services at BESA QSys, noting that the collaboration is important to both companies.
During the visit to Kokkola, several workshops were held with the aim of strengthening the partnership and mutual learning. One particularly fruitful afternoon – for both sides – was spent with Mervi Kivistö, RAI Coordinator, and Hannele Laitinen, RAI Specialist of the Central Finland wellbeing services county.
– It’s a great privilege to learn and develop together as peers. We came up with many excellent ideas, and some have already turned into concrete actions. For example, we created a monthly staffing monitoring table for 24-hour service housing. The table has been used actively in our financial meetings. I felt that our goals and ideas in Central Finland and in Switzerland were very aligned. We learned from and inspired each other, says RAI Coordinator Mervi Kivistö.
In Switzerland, the RAIsoft software is used in 24-hour care for the elderly across approximately 800 care homes, covering nearly 40,000 beds in total. Currently, two major transitions are underway: the adoption of the latest LTCF version of the interRAI assessment, and a shift to SaaS (Software as a Service), meaning the software is no longer hosted on clients’ own servers but accessed via the internet. While these changes have already been gradually implemented in Finland, Switzerland is now undertaking them as a larger, more unified rollout—drawing from Finland's experience, yet adapting to its own very different operating environment.
– Switzerland has 26 different and independent cantons and three major official languages—German, French, and Italian—in which everything must function, explains Lukas Geis, responsible for the RAIsoft software at BESA QSys.
A larger change is also on the horizon—one that will further deepen the collaboration between Vitec Raisoft and BESA QSys.
– interRAI is not the only assessment system used in Switzerland. Our clients use either interRAI or the BESA assessment tool, and a few cantons use Plaisir. Our owner, the umbrella association for care homes, now made the decision that all BESA users will transition to RAIsoft software by 2028, which means the number of RAIsoft users and bed coverage in Switzerland will nearly double, Christine Papilloud-Rey says.
She has long been involved in interRAI implementation and admits that the work has proven far more extensive than she once thought.
– I started as an interRAI trainer 14 years ago. Back then, I thought I’d train all nursing home staff in interRAI and that would be that. And here we are, she laughs, adding that once the basics are in place, one can keep diving deeper into interRAI—with plenty more to learn.
In Finland, the interRAI assessment tools are already widely used. Since the interRAI assessment was added to the Elderly Services Act in 2020, it's been implemented nationwide for older adults receiving regular services. Now, usage is expanding into other sectors, such as mental health and disability services. The newest development is the RAIsoft.net Self-Assessment, which began in Central Finland this spring after a successful pilot project. A similar move could happen in Switzerland as well—and Finland offers a useful model to follow.
– In 24-hour care, interRAI (RAIsoft.net) is already the most used in Switzerland, but in home care, many different softwares are used, including RAIsoft.net, which is just one among many, note Papilloud-Rey and Geis.
Switzerland currently uses just three interRAI instruments: interRAI LTCF in long-term residential care, and both interRAI HC and CMH (Community Mental Health) in home care. The interRAI CMH tool, which in Finland is used only in mental health services, is applied in Switzerland as a follow-up when the initial interRAI HC assessment indicates possible mental health concerns.
– interRAI usage in Switzerland will continue to expand, say Papilloud-Rey and Geis, with strong confidence in the power of partnership.