Jos de Blok set up Buurtzorg – which means ‘neighbourhood care’ in Dutch – with a team of four nurses. Today there are nearly 8,000 Buurtzorg nurses in 630 independent teams, caring for 60,000 patients a year. Nurses in Sweden, Norway, Japan and the United States are adopting the Buurtzorg model.

1. The Buurtzorg Mission: ‘to change and improve the delivery and quality of home health care
through the leadership and collaboration of the community nurse, allowing the individual to receive
the kind of care they most need, where they most want it, and thus avoid more costly institutional
care for as long as possible.’

2. Buurtzorg started in 2007 with one team/four nurses. Today there are nearly 8,000 Buurtzorg nurses
in 630 independent teams, caring for 60,000 patients a year.
Nurses in Sweden, Norway, Japan and the United States are adopting the Buurtzorg model.

3. The care delivery model takes a nurse-led team approach.
Buurtzorg nurses provide an ‘inside-out’ layer of care, acting as ‘navigators’ for the patient and their
families with other health care professionals, while helping patients to find their own solutions to
their care needs.

4. ‘The community-based nurse should have a central role – after all they know best how they can
support specific circumstances for the patient. Patients will do what they never expected they could
do again.’ Jos de Blok, Buurtzorg

5. ‘By changing the model of care, Buurtzorg has accomplished a 50 per cent reduction in hours of care,
improved quality of care and raised work satisfaction for their employees’. KPMG, 2012