Keywords: Continuity of care, rural practise

Justification:

The country doctors with a lifelong patient-doctor relation – extinct species? Or the best job one can have!
Exploring different solutions across Europe to attract and retain doctors that can provide future primary care in rural and isolated areas.

Objective:

Continuity of care, in rural areas often represented by a local general practitioner, can lead to fewer misdiagnoses, better trust in health advice, fewer hospitalizations and even longer life expectancy. Continuity of care is cost-effective.
Continuity of care is good for the patient but also for the doctor. Knowledge of your patients, their families and their environment makes a person-centered way of working easier and in the long run makes the doctor calm and effective. We want to encourage young doctors to experience that!
There is a shortage of doctors in rural primary care and many are old. There are different ways that nations and regions try to meet the future needs of health care for their rural populations. What is needed? Small, single-handed practices or team-based health care centers? We will share our experience from different parts of Europe’s rural/isolated areas.

Organisation:

The authors will do short presentations from different European countries. In smaller groups we will explore how we can contribute to our authorities’ decisions, help with rural proofing by giving them facts, formulating goals and also proposing means to achieve them. We also want to highlight good examples.

Participation:

Rural practitioners and trainees, and other health professionals working far from the urban areas.

Expected outcomes:

A summary will take place at the end of the workshop. From it the authors will produce a paper that can serve as an influence on the following work and a contribution to further research.