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Background: Caring for an increasing number of multimorbid people is a challenge for general practices in Germany. A possible approach to ensure future care could be the cooperation between general practices and community care points, which have so far been a little-known option among general practitioners. The aim of this study was to investigate the benefits or additional burdens that, from the perspective of general practices, a cooperation between general practices and community care points would bring for both the general practitioners themselves and their patients., Methods: In the mixed-methods study COMPASS II, general practices were able to refer multimorbid patients with social counselling needs to a community care point. Semi-structured guideline-based telephone interviews were conducted with nine general practitioners and nine medical practice assistants regarding the feasibility of cooperation with the community care points. The interviews were analysed using framework analysis., Results: In the qualitative interviews, the general practitioners and medical practice assistants reported that the community care points helped them save time by relieving them of social counselling tasks. The interviewees felt relieved by knowing that the community care points expertly take care of their patients' social concerns. From the perspective of the interviewees, multimorbid patients experienced changes in their care through the counselling in community care points, such as adjusting the level of care they require. Social counsellors provided patients and their relatives with an overview of the support options available. The majority of the interviewees did not feel that cooperating with the community care point put an additional burden on their patients or on themselves., Discussion and Conclusion: Cooperation between general practices and community care points has the potential to improve care for multimorbid patients and reduce the workload burden on general practices. Community care points are legally anchored counselling services which general practitioners could increasingly involve in the care of patients with multimorbidity., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier GmbH.)

Primary care for multimorbid patients involves social counseling in addition to medical care. Community care points are established institutions for social counseling at district level in Berlin. A Berlin-wide questionnaire survey examined primary care physicians' knowledge of and experience with community care points. 700 questionnaires were analysed exploratively and descriptively. General practitioners were only partially familiar with the services of community care points (60% barely or not at all). 57% of the general practitioners stated that they already had contact with community care points. General practitioners who had not yet had contact with a community care point recommended other advice centers for social (76%) and care-related advice (79%) to their patients. A majority of general practitioners expressed a wish to get more information about community care points., Competing Interests: Die Autorinnen/Autoren geben an, dass kein Interessenkonflikt besteht., (The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).)

Introduction: Primary care for multimorbid patients does not only include medical but also social counseling. In Germany, community care points represent an institutionalised support offer for counseling for social and care-related issues at district level., Methods: Within the framework of an intervention study on the cooperation between general practices and community care points in Berlin, 14 telephone interviews were conducted with multimorbid patients with social counseling needs who received advice by a community care point. The aim was to investigate satisfaction with the cooperation process as a whole and with the counseling provided by the community care points. The transcribed interviews were analysed using the framework analysis., Results: Overall, the patients were satisfied with the counseling they received from the community care points. In many cases, even after counseling, patients were not aware of the range of services offered by the community care points, and there was confusion about community care points and locally known mobile care services. Patients felt that it was particularly important to have a friendly, reliable contact person, to be close to their own place of residence and to have a long-term connection to the service. From the point of view of those affected, the general practitioner remains an important contact person who initiates the counseling, if necessary, and coordinates the interventions to be derived from the counseling result., Discussion: The confusion about community care points and mobile care services due to a lack of knowledge about the range of services offered by community care points are central topics in the interviews. This could be due to the heterogeneous supply of the community care points as well as the lack of networking with GP practices. A standardisation of the offer and increased information and networking activities of the community care points at district level could contribute to an increased level of awareness and improve transparency of their services., Conclusion: In the long term, cooperation between community care points and general practitioners could help relieve the burden on general practitioners and improve social care for multimorbid patients at district level., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier GmbH.)

Objectives: Because of demographic changes, new models of care are important for supporting general practitioners in the care of patients with complex needs. This study addresses the question of the type of support that is requested by general practitioners working in Berlin., Methods: All general practitioners working in Berlin (n=2354) were asked between August and September 2018 to return a questionnaire by post which has been developed for this study. Questions addressed support needs as well as support models within the practice (delegation, substitution) and outside the practice (social worker, navigator, community care points). Data were analysed descriptively and by exploratory multivariate analysis to show the influence of practice and doctor characteristics on the preference of support models (age, gender, location of the practice, type of practice, working hours)., Results: A total of 557 questionnaires (response rate 23.7%) were included in the analysis. Need for support was seen particularly for administrative, coordinative and organisational tasks and for advice on social issues. The majority of the study participants approved delegation and substitution. In their view, it was conceivable to get support from professionals or institutions outside their practice, such as mobile care services, community care points, social workers or navigators. Particularly younger and female doctors working in group practices were open for cooperative care models integrating other health professions., Conclusions: There is unused potential for delegation and cooperation within existing structures. Further research should investigate the acceptance and feasibility of different support models., Competing Interests: Die vorliegende Arbeit ist Teil des Verbundprojekts „NAVICARE – Patientenorientierte Versorgungsforschung“. NAVICARE wird gefördert vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) im Rahmen des Förderschwerpunkts Strukturaufbau in der Versorgungsforschung (01GY1601)., (Thieme. All rights reserved.)