Patient Education and Counseling 39 (2000) 177–184 www.elsevier.com / locate / pateducou Dutch transmural nurse clinics for chronic patients: a descriptive study a, a a b * D. Temmink , A.L. Francke , A. Kerkstra , H. Huyer Abu-Saad a NIVEL, Netherlands Institute of Primary Health Care, P .O. Box 1568, 3500 BN Utrecht, The Netherlands b Maastricht University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Nursing Science, Maastricht, The Netherlands Received 3 August 1998; received in revised form 6 January 1999; accepted 7 February 1999 Abstract ‘Transmural care’ can be defined as patient-tailored care provided on the basis of close collaboration and joint responsibility between hospitals and home care organizations. One form of transmural care is transmural nurse clinics for chronically ill. This study describes 62 transmural nurse clinics in the Netherlands. It was established that most of these nurse clinics are held by a specialized community nurse at a hospital outpatient clinic. The principal tasks of the specialized nurse at the clinic are providing illness-related information and supporting patients in dealing with the illness. Only a few unpublished evaluations of Dutch transmural nurse clinics have been conducted. Future research has to provide more insight into the impact of transmural nurse clinics on the quality and continuity of care.  2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Transmural care; Chronically ill; Nurse clinics; Consultation; Collaboration 1. Introduction primary care, is tailored to patients’ needs and provided on the basis of close collaboration and joint ‘Transmural care’ is a new concept in Dutch responsibility by primary care and hospital organiza- health care which was introduced at the beginning of tions [2]. Close collaboration means collaboration the 1990s and has been a rapidly growing field since between professionals on a formal structural basis then [1]. The concept refers to care which breaks which can, for instance, be seen in regular meetings down the traditional walls between hospital and in which both patient-related subjects as well as pre-conditions of the transmural care process are discussed. Joint responsibility refers to formal agree- ments about the transmural care process at an organizational level. Such agreements can be written *Corresponding author. Tel.: 1 31-30-2729700; fax: 1 31-30- down in protocols or guidelines which, for instance, 2729729. E-mail address: d.temmink@nivel.nl (D. Temmink) contain information about who, or what organization, 0738-3991 / 00 / $ – see front matter  2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S0738-3991(99)00020-8