Buurtzorg - Community Nursing

Buurtzorg is a community nursing organization in the Netherlands. It started small, focused on the needs of the professional care team and the people they support. It uses a self-organizing model that puts the local team in charge of the care and how they run the team to provide that care.

A trio of remarkable outcomes resulted from this.

1. Extremely satisfied patients with excellent outcomes and reduced total costs (40% below the expected cost). 
2. Extremely satisfied workers. Buurtzorg was the Employer of the Year in 2011 and 2012 in the Netherlands.
3. Explosive growth, from the first team of 4 nurses in 2006 to 8,000 in 2014. Buurtzorg now provides 80% of the community nursing services in the Netherlands. This has occurred with almost no corporate overhead (a central staff of 45 and 15 team coaches).

The shared services include

• An electronic health record
• A social network
• A team dashboard

There are references to some outsourced services, such as payroll and legal. I'd like to know more.

Here are links about Buurtzorg.

Buurtzorg: www.buurtzorgnederland.com/ Translate this page

Buurztorg USA: http://buurtzorgusa.org/about.html

The Queen's Nursing Institute (2014 blogs):

http://theqni.tumblr.com/post/94532689636/buurtzorg-whats-it-all-about

http://theqni.tumblr.com/post/97878349101/buurtzorg-nurse-riekje-writes-about-setting-up-a-new

Australian Aging Agenda (2014): http://www.australianageingagenda.com.au/2014/07/30/dutch-model-offers-alternative-approach-home-care/

KPMG Case Study (2010): http://www.kpmg.com/global/en/issuesandinsights/articlespublications/value-walks/pages/netherlands.aspx

I came across Buurtzorg in a book on a new organizational paradigm (Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux). A great book that needs its own entry... something for another day.

Self-Organizing Organizations

A friend is hosting a workshop to focus his small company, Courage Labs. Here's his recommended reading/viewing list and commentary:

Reinventing Organizations

Talks about how to build solid organizations that people want to work in/on.  I'll be using "Orange" and "Green" and "Teal" a lot -- you should know what that means in an organizational context.

Holacracy as an Evolutionary Algorithm

A Teal organization (see above) doesn't have a master planner -- it has partners who care and work to help the organization evolve.  I have a strong bias toward this particular ruleset.

Imagine a Company Without a Boss

A 20-minute introductory video about Holacracy (without a lot of detail).

Official Holacracy Introductory Video

Introduces the Holacracy governance system, its core meetings and constitution.  My intention is to have Courage Labs abide by the Holacracy Constitution.

Benefit Corporation (Wikipedia)

I want Courage Labs to be a place that is beyond profit.  A purpose-driven organization that is driven as much (if not more) by how much it benefits the world as how it generates profit.  I will be pushing for reorganizing Courage Labs as a Benefit Corporation.

3 Tier Partnership App

A Holacracy "app" that can define how to "split up" ownership of a Holacractic organization.  I'll be asking everyone at this meeting what tier they belong in.

Ten Minute Meditation Instruction

At a recent company meeting, one of my co-workers asked for some resources for meditation practice. I thought "this is something I could offer." Here is the first of a series of 10-minute talks on meditation practice. Short pieces to be of benefit to new and more experienced meditators.