Henk Nies

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | VU · Department of Organisation Sciences

Aims To identify crucial programme characteristics and group mechanisms of, and lessons learned from hindrances in an empowerment programme for certified nursing assistants and contribute to the development of similar programmes in other care settings. Design Exploratory qualitative study. Methods Between May 2017 and September 2020, we used in‐d...

Background Improving interdisciplinary and inter-organizational collaboration is increasingly regarded as maintaining and improving the quality of care. However, health and social care have been an area of organizational and disciplinary differentiation and fragmentation. Though interventions to increase the effectiveness of collaboration and barri...

Collaboration has become an imperative of many new healthcare policies; however, little attention has been paid to how system-level narratives in both policy documents and the media create boundaries that shape implementation processes. By using boundary work as a theoretical lens, this article critically analyses the discourse found in both policy...

Background Client-centred care serves as the foundation for healthcare policy. Indeed, various instruments for assessing clients’ experiences of care and support are increasingly used to provide insights into the quality, and client-centred nature, of the care and support provided, which, in turn, aids the development of subsequent improvements. Th...

Health, social, and community care agencies are undergoing rapid changes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, arguably offering a “window of opportunity” for health system transformation. What is required is theoretical guidance to help determine whether rapid system responses are likely to be sustained as part of broader transformation efforts. W...

Introduction: In the Netherlands multiple single, cross sector and cross governance level policy reforms were introduced to improve health and social care and decrease fragmentation. In addition to legislative and funding measures, the governmental strategy was to set up long-lasting improvement programs and supported by applied research. Descrip...

Highlighting public-service actors’ deliberately tokenistic or self-serving efforts, existing literature has shown that public participation often involves the co-optation of sympathetic citizens. In contrast, our study demonstrates that participatory advocates may discredit and marginalize critical voices despite their own inclusive, democratic id...

Background: Researchers often stress the necessity and challenge of integrating the positionings of residents, family members and nurses in order to realize each actor's involvement in long-term dementia care. Yet most studies approach user and family involvement separately. Aim: To explain how productive involvement in care provision is accompl...

Background Approximately 4 years ago a new concept of learning in practice called the ‘Learning and Innovation Network (LIN)’ was introduced in The Netherlands. To develop a definition of the LIN, to identify working elements of the LIN in order to provide a preliminary framework for evaluation, a concept analysis was conducted. Method For the con...

In their paper, Morton-Chang et al. (2016) discuss how aging societies are struggling and trying to cope with the rapidly increasing numbers of persons living with dementia (PLWD). In that sense, the Canadian case is not unique. On the contrary, it is very similar to other developing countries. Therefore, it is worthwhile to reflect from another co...

What happens when people try to ‘transcend’ organizational boundaries and engage with so-called outsiders? Current boundary-work literature does not fully account for the processual, dispersed, and political dynamics triggered by such efforts. To address this shortcoming, this article builds on an ethnographic study of a professional care provider’...

Background: Health systems globally are still struggling to roll out system-wide models of integrated health and social care. While pockets of innovation exist they often remain stuck within single jurisdictions, or, worse yet, never expand beyond the pilot phase. Researchers, providers, managers and health system leaders could learn from the exper...

Policy makers, practitioners and academics often claim that care users and other citizens should be ‘at the center’ of care integration pursuits. Nonetheless, the field of integrated care tends to approach these constituents as passive recipients of professional and managerial efforts. This paper critically reflects on this discrepancy, which, we c...

Objectives: Differences between country-specific guidelines for economic evaluations complicate the execution of international economic evaluations. The aim of this study was to develop cross-European recommendations for the identification, measurement and valuation of resource use and lost productivity in economic evaluations using a Delphi proce...

Iemand in zijn waarde laten is een essentieel onderdeel van goede zorg. Maar waar hebben we het dan over, wat is eigenlijk waardigheid? Hoe verhoudt dat begrip zich tot identiteit en hoe ontwikkelt het zich als iemand dementie krijgt?

This book is about caring for older people in the 21st century. It shows the many facets of care and the diverse factors that influence the relation between the person depending on care and the care giver(s), the impacts of caregiving on the family and the larger social context, as well as socio-cultural and political aspects underlying the growing...

Introduction To meet the needs of vulnerable people, the integration of services across different sectors is important. This paper presents a preliminary review of service integration across sectors in Europe. Examples of service integration between social services, health, employment and/or education were studied. A further aim of the study was to...

When studying individual attempts to foster citizen engagement, scholars have pointed to the coexistence of competing rationales. Thus far, however, current literature barely elaborates on the socio-political processes through which employees of professional organizations deal with such disparate considerations. To address this gap, this article bu...

In de zorg krijgt de mantelzorger een steeds prominentere rol in het beleid. Er wordt nu en in de toekomst veel van haar of hem verwacht. Tegelijkertijd blijkt in de zorgpraktijk dat er over en weer tussen cliënt, zorgverlener en mantelzorger soms tegenstrijdige verwachtingen zijn.

Due to improved living conditions and better health care, life expectancy is expanding very rapidly in many countries (Colombo et al., Help wanted? Providing and paying for long-term care, OECD Health Policy Studies, Paris, 2011). Overall, we consider this as a blessing. But this blessing is to some extent ambiguous. Many people also extend their l...

Ruim drie jaar geleden vertelden Annelies Versteegden en Henk Nies in Teamwork over hun wittebroodsweken als voorzitter en lid van de raad van bestuur van Vilans. “Kom over drie jaar nog maar eens terug”, inviteerde Nies. Dat doen we graag. Hoe staat de samenwerking er nu voor?

Sinds de hervorming van de langdurige zorg in 2015 is de vraag of kwetsbare burgers de zorg krijgen die ze nodig hebben. Mensen die hulp nodig hebben doen in toenemende mate een beroep op hun directe sociale omgeving. Dat beroep op de informele zorg vraagt veel veerkracht en organisatievermogen van families, maar ook van vrijwilligers, professional...

Besturen en toezicht houden in de zorg worden echt anders. In de eco-systemen van de toekomst financieren raden van bestuur en toezicht waardetoevoeging voor cliënten/patiënten, vrijwilligers en burgers. De hiërarchie voorbij.

In their paper, Morton-Chang et al. (2016) discuss how aging societies are struggling and trying to cope with the rapidly increasing numbers of persons living with dementia (PLWD). In that sense, the Canadian case is not unique. On the contrary, it is very similar to other developing countries. Therefore, it is worthwhile to reflect from another co...

Begin februari vertrok ik voor 72 uur naar een verpleeghuis op de Veluwe om zelf te ervaren wat abstracte begrippen als eigen regie, privacy, respect en waardigheid inhouden.

This article gives an in-depth description of the service delivery model of Geriant, a Dutch organization providing community-based care services for people suffering from dementia. Core to its model is the provision of clinical case management, embedded in multidisciplinary dementia care teams. As Geriant's client group includes people from the fi...

Als het om ‘langer thuis’ gaat is er eigenlijk niets nieuws onder de zon. We zijn er al zo’n 45 jaar mee bezig! Toch lijkt nu een grotere druk op dit beleidsdoel te liggen dan ooit. Veel van die urgentie heeft te maken met de betaalbaarheid van de zorg; uit de collectieve middelen wel te verstaan. Maar zeer veel ouderen kiezen sowieso voor langer t...

Background: In the Netherlands the complexity of the governance of health care organisations, especially in long-term care, will increase. This is related to a large health care reforms and transitions which are currently implemented. In 2015 all relevant health and social care legislation will change. The aim is to strengthen care in the community...

Integrated care has become too much a professionals' concept, in research and theory development, as well as in practice, especially in high-income countries. The current debate on integrated care is dominated by norms and values of professionals, while most of the care is provided by non-professionals. The paradigms of integrated care for people w...

Dertig jaar geleden stond het kleine verpleeghuis model voor de Nederlandse ouderenzorg. Nu staat Denemarken model voor de decentralisaties in de langdurige zorg. Nederlandse bestuurders gaan kijken en leren.

As ageing societies are pushing a growing number of frail old people into needing care, delivering quality long-term care services – care that is safe, effective, and responsive to needs – has become a priority for governments. Yet much still remains to be done to enhance evidence-based measurement and improvement of quality of long-term care servi...

A large variety of approaches to reduce risks and improve performance can be observed in long-term care across and within countries, depending on the role of public, private for-profit and non-profit care providers, as well as on governance mechanisms at national, regional or local levels. The introduction of quasi-markets and public tendering has...

This book challenges the prevailing discourse centred on the problems of demographic change and long-term care provision for older people by focusing on solutions emerging from progression and improvement in policy and practice. Building on ample research in 13 European countries, evidence is provided for how the construction of long-term care syst...

Drawing on research across a wide range of European countries, this book analyzes the key issues at stake in developing long-term care systems for older people in Europe with a focus on progression and improvement for policy and practice. © Kai Leichsenring, Jenny Billings and Henk Nies 2013. All rights reserved.

Developing and ensuring the quality of its products and services has become an imperative task for any organisation’s management. This understanding first developed in industrial settings, rather than in health and social services, where the traditional approach has been to consider quality assurance as an intrinsic part of professional ethics (Eve...

Long-term care is a concept everybody is familiar with because we read about it in the newspapers or because we know someone who receives services or works in long-term care (LTC). Nowadays it affects the lives of many people. But what is LTC exactly? Which organisations and people provide this care? Many people still associate LTC primarily with c...

When Peter Townsend published his landmark study about long-stay institutional care in England and Wales 50 years ago, he could not help calling these institutions ‘The Last Refuge’ (Townsend, 1962). He was ‘both daunted and shocked’ by what he had seen and heard, from overcrowded dormitories ‘with ten or twenty iron-framed beds close together’ (p....

On average citizens of European Union (EU) countries that reach the age of 65 can expect to live for another 19.1 years and at the EU level this group of people represent 16.6 per cent of the population (Eurostat). This testifies to the current ageing profile of the European population. Although gains in life expectancy are a positive outcome in it...

The consequences of dementia, for both patients and primary caregivers, are formidable. Primary caregivers are often overburdened or are significantly at risk for becoming overburdened. How do we meet this substantial and complex social challenge, which is as yet insufficiently recognized? We must start looking for new forms of care and support, fo...

Across Europe family members provide by far the largest amount of care for older, disabled and chronically ill people; family care is essential for the sustainability of many countries' long-term care arrangements. This study provides up-to-date evidence from across the European Union (EU) on the numbers and characteristics of carers and the conseq...

The integration of older people's services is a challenge to all countries with an ageing population. Although it is widely acknowledged that acute care, long-term care, social care, housing, leisure, education and other services should all operate in a more 'joined-up manner', achieving this in practice remains extremely difficult. Against this ba...

In recent years several methods for supporting caregivers of dementia patients have been developed. This article reviews the scientific research of these methods. It appears that in the relatively few studies only the effects of support groups, respite care and psychotherapy have been examined. The curative forms of support are capable of helping c...

The assessment of need and the vested interests of powerful actors constitute two major problems in the local planning of services for elderly people. In this article the contribution of applied research to these planning processes is explored by means of a case study into care delivery to long term elderly patients. The case study design appears t...

The United Kingdom and the Netherlands differ significantly with respect to structure, policy, legislation and financing of their care delivery systems. Day care services for elderly people thus developed in considerably different policy and socio-historical contexts. In this article various aspects of day care in the two countries are compared. Th...

The last five years day centres for the elderly have been developed on a large scale in the The Netherlands. In this article a number of characteristics of forty day centres is described. By means of a content analysis these characteristics were derived from written reports. There is a considerable variety in the denominations of the schemes, the a...

The Dutch governmental report 'Care of the elderly' is evaluated in the light of the findings of the study 'The elderly and their health in the Netherlands, 1984-2000'. The latter delineates three scenario's, by which in the near future the need of provisions may develop. The reference-scenario assumes a stable, relative demand for provisions, the...

Day-treatment has developed very rapidly in Dutch nursing homes. This development was due to several unproved positive expectations concerning the therapeutical results, the effects for relatives and caregivers at home and the substitutional effects of day-treatment. In this article these expectations are tested by means of a Dutch literature-revie...

Needs of older people and long-term care Needs of frail older people are often longstanding, multiple and complex. They are not merely related to their physical or mental condition: the physical environment (e.g. housing, technology, neighbourhood), the social environment (family, friends, neighbours), income, social participation and the degree to...