By Marjan van den Akker and Christiane Muth
On Wednesday, October 17, 2012, an international symposium took place at the ´Deutsche Nationalbibliothek´ in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
The focus of the symposium was on questions that keep family doctors and general practice researchers busy, such as: What should and can be done when my patient has several illnesses simultaneously? What are the problems of multimorbidity and polypharmacy that confront us today? What clinical decision-support does evidence-based medicine (EbM) currently provide, and how can EbM contribute in the future? Leading researchers representing both disciplines – EbM and multimorbidity research – discussed the dilemmas and challenges that multimorbidity entails, as well as strategies to overcome them.
The symposium garnered attention, both from Germany and abroad. There were over 130 registrations. For further detail on the program and speakers, see [link to the Institute of General Practice, Goethe-University, Frankfurt, Germany:
http://www.allgemeinmedizin.uni-frankfurt.de/forschung2/ebm_symposium.html.
The Symposium was part of the Friedrich Merz Foundation’s 22nd visiting professorship, to which Professor Marjan van den Akker from Maastricht University was appointed this year.
Subsequent to the symposium a 2-day international workshop on ´How to handle patients with multimorbidity in primary care´ was conducted. Twenty participants from the UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain exchanged on this subject. Although there is a growing body of knowledge regarding multimorbidity, it seems to mainly focus on observational, epidemiological studies. There remains a lack of research studying and supporting every day clinical practice for patients with multimorbidity.
A collaborative report on the workshop will follow.