The Dutch story: Effectiveness, but no good patient care
Buurtzorg was founded in 2006 by a nurse who wanted to organise neighbourhood nurses in a much better way. In the Dutch health care system these nurses are very important: they cooperate closely with hospitals and family doctors.
In the nursing organisation all attention was fixed on efficiency, economies of scale being the first commandment. Activities in these organisations were assigned to employees with various roles: intake specialists, workers in call centres, schedule planners and also, of course, managers.
Typically these organisations were highly efficient. On the other hand, the system gradually ceased to perceive patients as human beings. Since schedule planning took place without a knowledge of the patients, the care was not continuous. What caused this? The goal of schedule planners was merely to minimise the travel time of nurses.
In the new company, nurses worked in self-organised teams usually consisting of just 12 people. They were taking care of patients (usually 50 in number) in their neighbourhood. These teams had to distribute tasks among themselves and also make decisions themselves. In addition, they had to monitor their own performance and be responsible for their own productivity.
Innovative organisational paradigm a huge success
Almost 40% of care hours per patient were saved. How? The new system of organisation meant patients were healing faster and staying in care on average only half as long. It can be seen that efficiency is achieved not by focusing merely on costs but also by ensuring that a human care experience is delivered to the patients.
Finally, we should not forget that Laloux is a very popular presenter: you can follow one of his lectures here.
Book
LALOUX Frederic: Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness, 2014, publisher: Nelson Parker, 378 pages
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