The Buurtzorg Model

Summary

Buurtzorg is a pioneering healthcare organisation established in 2006 with a nurse-led model of holistic care that revolutionised community care in the Netherlands.

Self-management, continuity, building trusting relationships, and building networks in the neighbourhood are all important and logical principles for the teams.

Content

The Buurtzorg onion model starts from the client perspective and works outwards to assemble solutions that bring independence and improved quality of life.

The onion model assembles the building blocks for independence based on universal human values:

• People want control over their own lives for as long as possible
• People strive to maintain or improve their own quality of life
• People seek social interaction
• People seek ‘warm’ relationships with others.

The professional attunes to the client and their context, taking into account the living environment, the people around the client, a partner or relative at home, and on into the client’s informal network; their  friends, family, neighbours and clubs as well as professionals already known to the client in their formal network.

In this way the professional seeks to build a solution involving the client and their formal and informal networks. Self-management, continuity, building trusting relationships, and building networks in the neighbourhood are all important and logical principles for the teams.