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Buurtzorg: The Right Technology is Needed to Embrace a Shift in Care

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Earlier this month, we profiled an exciting new development in home care: an approach to nursing called Buurtzorg or, colloquially, the Dutch model of neighbourhood care. This unique way of thinking about how we care for clients in their homes is gradually gaining awareness and acceptance in more countries across the globe.

Buurtzorg emphasizes a more intimate, considerate type of individual client care, in the same vein as neighbours helping neighbours. From an administrative point of view, the key to this model is that nurses themselves form self-managing teams, with a group responsible for providing a full range of client services (both clinical and not) within a specific geographic region.

Nurses engaged in Buurtzorg seem to favour this approach, as it gives them greater autonomy, reduces their administrative burden, and ensures they can be with patients at least 60 percent of their working day.

Such a model is piquing the interest of home care agencies who are dealing with the ever-pressing issue of attracting and retaining top-quality nursing staff, whose availability is in short supply yet high demand. Several of AlayaCare’s clients in the U.S., Canada and Australia are testing the waters to see how this approach may benefit business. In fact, one of our clients recently won an award at our user conference last year for initiating this model, and as such, demonstrating innovation, operational excellence, best practice management and improved outcomes in the home and community care space.

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As Buurtzorg gains traction, it will require not only new ways of thinking, but adoption of new technologies to ensure long-term success. 

Technology drives the future of home care

AlayaCare knows that any significant shift in business requires intuitive, flexible software that can grow with any direction an agency moves. Our tech is well-positioned to embrace the Dutch model of neighbourhood care, and we continue to investigate additional ways it can be tweaked to permit even greater flexibility. 

For nurses to embrace more time with clients and act as their own management team, there are certain software features that should be in place. Here are the top-five ways that AlayaCare can help:

  1. Streamlined communication: Coordinating communication amongst a team is critical, particularly in a model such as Buurtzorg, which relies on a group-care approach. AlayaCare’s technology is second-to-none for keeping team needs in check, with features such as the ability to coordinate interdisciplinary progress notes, and task authoring from mobile devices coming out in July.1ec574a9-805d-4cad-8f75-e0bc7b29753a_display
  1. Improved visibility: For a model like this to function most efficiently, all members of the caregiving group must be fully apprised as to a client’s wants and needs. Efficient technology can offer caregivers full view of a client’s vitals, with team-based alerts for emergencies, plus real-time, shared access to important client documentation.
  1. Help nurses with autonomy and self-reliance: Ensuring that nursing staff can spend at least 60 percent of their time focused on hands-on client care means that other aspects of their jobs must not lag. AlayaCare’s software solution allows for self-scheduling for maximum efficiency, in addition to point-of-care documentation to ensure no time is wasted in capturing essential updates from a visit.
  1. Better planning between agency headquarters and field workers: Since staff members enjoy a fair amount of autonomy here, it’s important to have a reliable method of managing both client and staff needs remotely. The right technology can provide crucial insight into caseloads and current assignments, track the skills of current caregivers, identify gaps in training, and more.

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As AlayaCare continuously updates and improves our software solution to address our client’s current and future needs, new features will continue to be rolled out. Planned updates include the ability to schedule group tasks, gain visibility into a client’s full schedule on mobile devices, family portals, and much more.

Buurtzorg is an exciting model for the future of client care, and AlayaCare will be there every step of the way as it becomes increasingly implemented by our clients around the world.  Reach out anytime to see how our software can help streamline your care needs both now and into the future.

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