Buurtzorg
Self-managing nurse teams, no managers, and substantially fewer care hours used.
Commonwealth Fund case study on Buurtzorg
May 2015
Ernst and Young study on care hours utilization
2009
Peer-reviewed scoping reviews noting selection and unplanned-care criticisms
various
Jos de Blok founded the Dutch home-care organization in 2006 around teams of ten to twelve nurses with no managers, supported by regional coaches and a deliberately minimal back office. It grew to many thousands of nurses across hundreds of teams and has been studied and copied internationally.
An Ernst and Young study found Buurtzorg met patient needs while using roughly 40 percent of authorized patient care hours, against an average nearer 70 percent among comparable organizations. The honest counterweight: peer-reviewed reviews have questioned patient selection and noted difficulty managing unplanned care, and nurses left during a UK pilot. The model is real and it is not universal.
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