Sunday, February 10, 2013

A Nurse-Led Community Health Model


History

Jos de Blok, a home health nurse from the Netherlands, saw that the profession of home health nursing was “dying” right in front of his own eyes.  He entered home care out of passion and compassion, but saw it changing to an organization all about production, protocols, and administration.  He made an agreement with himself that he would not be content until the role of a home health nurse regained its’ social value. 

In 2006, Jos de Blok started a small organization called Buurtzorg Netherland, or Netherland Neighborhood Care.   The organisational model of Buurtzorg is to have care delivered by small self-managing teams consisting of a maximum of twelve professional carers, and to keep organisational costs as low as possible.  Buurtzorg responds to the client’s care needs, tries to find solutions together with the client and their informal carers and other formal carers involved, arranges things around care and social life, and supports self-decision of the client about what is necessary. 
 
 
The Buurtzorg Method

The Buurtzorg method has six sequential components, which are delivered as a coherent package and cannot be delivered separately.

 •Component 1 is to assess the client’s needs; the assessment is holistic and includes medical needs, LTC needs and personal/social needs. On the basis of the resulting information, the individual care plan will be drafted.

•Component 2 is to map networks of informal care and involve them in care.

•Component 3 is to identify and include formal carers.

 •Component 4 is care delivery.

 •Component 5 is supporting the client in his/her social roles.

•Component 6 is to promote self-care and independence.
 
Results
 
As of 2010, Buurtzorg teams were active in 250 locations nationwide. The patient satisfaction was extremely high. The satisfaction of staff and co-working GP’s were also very high. The cost of care was nearly half as expensive as traditional home care.
 
 
Below are links to learn more about Jos de Blok and the Buurtzorg Netherland project:


2 comments:

  1. I found your blog interesting and inspiring this week as I blogged about a similar topic; innovative and future models of care. Nursing care delivery models need to balance the needs of the clients instead of the protocols and administration, as you talk about. I feel that the model that you presented falls with in a few of the models of care delivery from out textbook. For example, the "12-bed hospital", minus the hospital and the Transistional care model as this model incorporates the nurse-led theme. After reading into the subject matter it seems very difficult to developed a perfect model of care that ultimately deceased health care cost and improves patient safety/outcomes. It also seems that a model of care will always be changing because patient care will continue to change. This is a market of change and as Raney says "make your peace with Change now".

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  2. Have you seen the work of Buurtzorg Minnesota? It's online at www.buurtzorgusa.com

    Awesome work being done right here in Minnesota using the Buurtzorg method!

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