General Practitioners (GPs) can delegate visits to patients and medical work to qualified employees. In this way, they can provide care to more patients. Neeltje van den Berg and coauthors from Greifswald and Neubrandenburg Universities present the "AGnES" project in the current edition of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2009; 106[1-2]: 3-9).
The change in the age structure in Germany has had major consequences for the number of patients. The increase in age-related and chronic diseases requires more house visits to patients. Five federal states have been performing AGnES model projects since 2005—where "AGnES" is the abbreviation for the German terms for a systemic intervention which reduces pressure on physicians, is close to the community and which is supported electronically. This delegates medical services to employees. The authors documented patient data and all work in the context of AGnES and interviewed GPs, practice employees, and patients. The authors' evaluation showed that the project was well accepted by participants. Physicians considered that the quality of medical care was good within the AGnES project.
http://www.aerzteblatt.de/v4/archiv/pdf.asp?id=62892