interprof HOME – Development and testing of an interprofessional person-centered care concept for patients living in their own homes

Against the background of the often complex care of patients in need of outpatient home care, coordination between nursing services, family doctors, therapists and family caregivers is often inadequate. This can have a negative impact on patient safety. Currently, about 50% of hospital admissions in this patient group are due to "ambulatory-sensitive" diagnoses.

Study design and methodology

The explorative mixed-methods study consists of two parts:

• Part A: Here, an interprofessional care concept is developed by means of focus groups and individual interviews of the actors involved, best-practice observations during medical and nursing home visits, as well as surveys and expert workshops. The evaluation of the individual work packages will be content-analytical, case-based content-analytical) and descriptive.
• Part B: The developed concept will be evaluated in an explorative cluster RCT with integrated feasibility study. One of the target variables is the proportion of patients with at least one hospital admission within one year. In addition to the statistical evaluation, a qualitative and quantitative process evaluation as well as a health economic evaluation will be conducted. The results will also be examined from a health law perspective.

Participating institutions

Consortium leadership:

Prof. Dr. med. Eva Hummers, Institute of General Practice, University Medical Center Göttingen, Germany

Consortium partners:

Prof. Tim Friede, PhD, Institute of Medical Statistics, University Medical Center Göttingen
Prof. Dr. Indre Maurer, Chair for Organization and Corporate Development, Georg-August-University Göttingen
Prof. Dr. Martin Scherer, Institute and Polyclinic for General Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf
Prof. Dr. Hans-Helmut König, Institute for Health Economics and Health Services Research, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf
Prof. Dr. Katrin Balzer, Section for Research and Teaching in Nursing, University of Lübeck
Prof. Dr. Sascha Köpke, Institute for Nursing Science, University of Cologne
Dr. Dr. Thomas Ruppel, Law Firm for Medical Law and Health Law, Lübeck