Care for the elderly: the role of the nursing home in the Dutch health care system.

Nursing homes, or verpleeghuizen, play an important role in the health care system in the Netherlands. These multifunctional institutions provide clinical and ambulatory (day hospital) care for somatic and psychogeriatric elderly with multiple pathology, disabilities, and handicaps. Quantitative data on morbidity, admission, and discharge of (psychogeriatric) nursing home patients are presented. The data on the nursing home institutions--number of residents, costs, and staff ratios--are placed in the context of the whole health care system. A new trend is to organize nursing home care in homes for the aged via substitution projects and dependences.