Model Practice MVZ Eckental

Model practice MVZ Eckental – improved working conditions for trainees in general practice

The shortage of general practitioners in Germany has become a bigger and bigger topic in the media over the last years. Within the scope of the project “model practice MVZ Eckental – better working conditions for trainees in general practice”, concepts were developed and tested in order to improve the working conditions for future GPs.

The medical treatment center (MVZ) in Eckental belongs to the UK Erlangen and is therefore the perfect base to test and evaluate new treatment concepts directly in practice. Furthermore, the existing group practice enables doctors to work in a medical team and therefore not having to practice as a “lone wolf”.

For the project, three main problems were identified that reduce the attractiveness of the GP profession for young physicians.

Aim

Management of information and intersections:

Especially within a medical team, complete (electronic) documentation is indispensable in order to ensure the continuity of information between attending physicians. On the basis of one of the most frequently used practice management systems in Germany we will try to ensure an improved management of information and intersection at least within one practice with the implementation of several optimizations.

Clinical quality management:

Clinical quality management entails the transferability of principles of general quality management to the clinical treatment of patients – wherever it is useful. Within the scope of the project, control over the quality of treatment should be gained via clinical quality management. Mistakes within the treatment of patients should be uncovered systematically. This will only be possible through an optimized method of documentation. The primary goal will not be a standardized treatment, but rather to reduce the risk of forgetting important clinical decisions. A key element for that are checklists that can simultaneously be reminders and instruments for documentation and data collection.

Forms of cooperation in primary care:

Especially with severely ill patients or those that need increased medical attention because of their age, cooperation between GPs and specialists as well as their cooperation with non-medical occupation groups such as social services is of high importance. To date, these groups have frequently been working next to each other or sometimes even in competition with each other. There has been almost none or too little transfer of information. The treatment of patients in primary care is therefore split up and loses its efficiency which then leads to over- and mistreatment and limits the satisfaction with the work of everyone involved. Within the scope of the project, inter-professional case boards were conducted in order to improve the treatment quality of geriatric patients.