OpenLB
Open Library of Bioscience

BACKGROUND: In 2006 and 2009 the US-American Commonwealth Fund (CMWF) already conducted international surveys with primary care physicians regarding their daily work and important aspects of care. In 2012 a third survey took place in 11 countries, with an emphasis on use of information technology.
METHODS: There was a written survey and a telephone survey of primary care physicians conducted in eleven industrial countries. In Germany, a random sample of 4 500 primary care physicians out of all 16 federal states were contacted by mail between April and July 2012. The data acquisition in Germany was conducted by the BQS Institute for Quality and Patient Safety and funded by the Federal Ministry of Health. The results were weighted by age, sex, region and medical specialty of the participating doctors.
RESULTS: 9 776 primary care physicians participated; 909 of them in Germany. The response rate in Germany was 20%. 80% of the primary care physicians in Germany are using electronic patient records. But special IT functions, with the exception of electronic prescriptions and ordering of laboratory tests, are little used compared to other countries. Even in countries with a wide use of special IT functions within the practices, the possibility of communicating with colleagues and patients electronically is often lacking. 35% of the German primary care physicians think the quality of care has declined since the last survey in 2009. Only in France do more primary care physicians share that feeling (37%). In 2012 a lot more German primary care physicians stated to have problems with long waiting times for specialist consults (2009: 10%; 2012: 68%).