How can primary care be secured in the long term? – a qualitative study from the perspective of general practitioners in Germany

Figures & data

Table 1. Agreement with actions to secure primary care.

Proposed action	Number of mentions	Assessment of the benefits of the action (related to the distribution in the sample)
Strengthening and making the position of general practice more effective (especially by introducing a primary care physician system)	49	Very effective
Longitudinal accompaniment of (clinical) medical studies with additional general practice modules	47	Very effective
Restructuring the contents of medical curricula	46	Very effective
Greater changes in the admission criteria for studying medicine (e.g. personality, previous experience)	41	Somewhat effective
Fundamental reform of general practice training	39	Somewhat effective
Significantly increasing the proportion of general medicine in training	37	Somewhat effective
Increased expansion of multi-professional centres of outpatient (primary) care	35	Somewhat effective
Delegation and increased use of non-doctor medical professions	35	Limited effectiveness
Binding definition of the GP catalogue of services	34	Limited effectiveness
(Stronger) requirements planning with targeted regional distribution effects	32	Limited to low effectiveness
Effective recruitment of physicians with the help of incentives and bonuses	29	Limited to low effectiveness
Setting quotas for access to specialist training (see also: Significantly increasing the proportion of general medicine in training)	27	Limited to low effectiveness
Setting up a continuous, nationwide quota for country physicians (clearly regulated for all states, as an on-top quota if necessary)	25	Limited to low effectiveness
Fundamental upgrading of GP remuneration	24	Limited to low effectiveness
Greater and more systematic use of digitisation and telemedicine (including video consultations, prescribing health apps for patient self-management).	23	Low effectiveness
Opening up authorisation for GP activities more for career changers with other disciplinary backgrounds	21	Low effectiveness
Many more student places in medicine	20	Low effectiveness

Data availability statement

The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available beacause participants did not give permission for recordings or transcripts to be released to other researchers but are available from the corresponding author at reasonable request.