Buurtzorg Neighborhood Care Asia

In 2014 Buurtzorg Neighborhood Care Asia was established with the objective to first adapt and then implement the multiply awarded Buurtzorg model of community-based, integrated care for the elderly in selected Asian countries...

February 14, 2018

In 2014 Buurtzorg Neighborhood Care Asia was established with the objective to first adapt and then implement the multiply awarded Buurtzorg model of community-based, integrated care for the elderly in selected Asian countries and by this to make the life of the elderly better in those countries. In 2017 we once again made significant progress on our journey towards our goals!

After the successful pilot project in Japan with – 40 nurse stations and – 250 nurses being trained in the ‘Buurtzorg way of working’, we established in 2016 Buurtzorg Services Japan, a Joint Venture with local partners, offering training, coaching, methodologies, brand & marketing support, IT and backoffice services to nurse stations in Japan. A blueprint for how to develop Buurtzorg impactfully across various Asian countries! After the launch of the first international version of our IT solution ‘BuurtzorgWeb’ outside of Holland we now win new franchisees every month!

In China we served more than 1.000 clients in 2017. We have established teams in Shanghai, Changzhou, Qingdao, Ningbo, pilots in Weifang and Hangzhou and will soon also start in Chengdu. After introduction of LTCI we face even more interest from business and government stakeholders as Buurtzorg remains the only established foreign player who is fully committed to China and dedicated to share its best practices around community care. And our ICT solution ‘BuurtzorgWeb’ offers the only comprehensive, professional and well established software solution in Mandarin to guide and document the care process and to measure outcomes, using the US Omaha model for care as a base (www.omahasystem.org).

In South Korea we are working on our pilot project with the Home Visiting Nurse Association. In Taiwan we successfully concluded our pilot project with 60 nurses and elderly care stakeholders being trained and 6 pilot nurse stations in New Taipei City and Taichung City, adapting and testing the localized version of the Buurtzorg model. Now we prepare for the roll out. In Singapore we are in final discussions with a leading public health provider to run a 2 years pilot project and to partner for starting up a Singaporean version of ‘BuurtzorgWeb’.

In June 2017 we started a pilot project in India with our local partner Edugreen who is a leading provider of skilling centers in rural areas for health care professions. Hence our social impact is twofold: (1) Helping elderly to have a better life at home and (2) helping young rural people to find their first jobs and to start a professional career. The pilot proved to be successful beyond expectations – in Q1/2018 we will already open 3 more teams and start our scale up/roll out phase.

And in various other APAC countries like e.g. Australia, Hongkong, Malaysia and Vietnam we are discussing about potential partnerships and/or pilot projects!