Samenvatting

Scant research has attempted to describe the value of NP practice for healthcare organizations in the Netherlands, the impact on organizational structures, and the division of jurisdictional control over prescribing. Other studies mostly focused on patient satisfaction with the NP role in comparison with physicians, on coordination of care, costs, clinical outcomes such as weight gain, eczema severity, length of hospital stay, and adequacy of medical treatment. While Dutch policymakers opted for task substitution from more expensive doctors to cheaper nurses mainly for efficiency’s sake, the economic arguments for substitution were all but robust. The above-mentioned studies provided some evidence that the NP role is appreciated in the Netherlands; it was shown that the NPs could manage condition-specific cases and achieve the same level of patient-related outcomes as obtained with medical management by physicians. Similarly, Tsiachristas et al.’s systematic literature review of international studies on the NP role found evidence for improvements in patient satisfaction, patient information, and clinical outcomes.