KOPAL
Development and evaluation of a concept for interprofessional collaboration for patients with palliative care needs
Background
The care of people with progressive chronic underlying diseases is a major challenge for GPs. Those affected often suffer from severe pain, shortness of breath, anxiety or other distressing symptoms. The need for palliative care is often considerable.
Early joint care planning by stakeholders from different professional groups can have a positive impact on the number of hospital admissions, the symptom burden and the quality of life of those affected. However, interprofessional care planning in the outpatient sector is not currently part of standard care.
Objectives
The overarching aim of KOPAL is to improve the care of chronically ill people with heart failure, COPD or dementia by intensifying interprofessional collaboration in outpatient care.
Sub-goals of the project are
- Early identification of care needs and requirements of all those involved in the care process
- Reduction of symptom burden, hospital admissions and inadequate medication for patients
- Improving the quality of life of patients and their relatives
Methods
The research project is divided into three work phases:
1. in the development and preparation phase, a concept for conducting telephone case discussions between general practitioners and nurses and physicians in specialized outpatient palliative care (SAPV) is developed.
2. in the recruitment and intervention phase, the concept will be tested in practice and a multicenter, cluster-randomized controlled study will be conducted at four locations (Hamburg, Hanover, Göttingen, Oldenburg). A total of around 600 patients with advanced heart failure, COPD or dementia will be interviewed about their health situation in 56 GP practices.
3. the evaluation phase comprises a qualitative evaluation of the acceptance and practicability of the intervention in the practice as well as the implementation strategy. In addition, a health economic analysis is used to determine the utilization of care services and a cost-effectiveness analysis is carried out.
Cooperation partner
KOPAL is a joint project under the consortium leadership of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (Study Director: Prof. Dr. Martin Scherer; Study Coordinator: Dr. Gabriella Marx).
Further cooperation partners are the University Medical Center Göttingen and the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg.
Promotion
The project is funded by the Innovation Committee of the Joint Federal Committee for the topic-specific funding of health services research (funding reference: 01VSF18024).
The project duration is from June 2019 to May 2022.
The KOPAL 2019 team
