MEDICA sponsorship award awarded
01.12.2009 10:14
General practitioner project LIA – Quality of life in old age receives MEDICA funding award for interdisciplinary projects in medicine
The general practitioner Dr. This year, WolfgangBlank and the medical assistant Waltraud Mader will receive the MEDICA sponsorship award for interdisciplinary projects in medicine. The award is given to an exemplary geriatric project that was developed under the conditions of a family doctor's practice in Kirchberg in the Bavarian Forest. The prize is endowed with 5,000 euros and was donated by the magazine Klinikarzt (Georg ThiemeVerlag, Stuttgart) and by the MEDICA German Society for Interdisciplinary Medicine e. V. awarded on November 18th as part of MEDICA 2009 in Düsseldorf.
The award winners succeeded in establishing structured collaboration between all specialist groups involved in outpatient medical care for the care of multimorbid, elderly patients in a rural region. In monthly team meetings, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nursing staff, medical assistants and family doctors plan and monitor the outpatient therapy of geriatric patients based on the existing physical and mental illnesses as well as the social environment. The aim is to maintain the independence of patients in old age for as long as possible, to prevent bed rest and to avoid early hospital admissions and the need for care.
Indicators of project success:
– Patients can be treated continuously in the project.
– The patients’ individual goals can largely be implemented.
– Despite the current burden of monthly meetings, the team has been constantly staffed and active for two years now.
– Relatives of patients from other places have heard about the project and would like care.
– Health insurance companies and medical services inform patients and relatives about the project.
“The jury found it particularly remarkable that those involved developed a viable concept to improve outpatient care for aging patients without any funding or logistical support from third parties and under the conditions of family medicine,” emphasizes Prof. Dr. med. Werner A. Scherbaum, President of the MEDICA Society. “We therefore hope that this voluntary commitment will be followed by others.”