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Background: Family practice is an important setting for health promotion and prevention in Germany. However, there is a research gap regarding the involvement of nonmedical practice staff in health promotion. Therefore, our aim is to gain an indepth understanding of the role health care assistants (HCAs) can play regarding health promotion in family practice. Methods: We conducted 21 qualitative semi-structured interviews via telephone with 14 physicians and 7 HCAs, inquiring both professional groups about the role of HCAs concerning health promotion in their practice. The interviews were evaluated separately for both professions using thematic analysis. Results: In addition to organizational tasks such as making an appointment and communicating with physicians, HCAsmainly take on a key function as the first contact person in all practices: They recognize preventive needs, select eligible patients early at the reception and actively address them about preventive services. In some practices, HCAs carry out health-promoting measures such as training courses. However, with regard to further delegation of tasks, physicians in particular expressed concerns as they did not want to overburden HCAs. Conclusions: HCAs often take on organizational activities with regard to health promotion in family practice, but due to their function in the practice structure, they can also shape the practice as a health-promoting setting for patients. In addition, HCAs navigate patients with regard to preventive and health-promoting services. In accordance with their key role as initial contact, it should be worked out together with HCAs how health promotion can be addressed in a structured way at first contact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

General practices are rooted in the local community and considered to be particularly well‐positioned for engaging in preventive and health‐promoting activities. The overall aim of the scoping review is to identify priorities and gaps in research published in the past 20 years on preventive and health‐promoting activities provided by general practitioners or their teams in general practices in Germany. MEDLINE and Embase databases were systematically searched in November 2020. Papers were selected in dual‐review mode and extracted in single‐review mode. Data analysis was finished by May 2021. In total, 530 papers were included in the synthesis. Little research has been carried out into collaboration opportunities both within the general practice team and in communities as a whole, with specialists (18%), hospitals (9%), and health insurance companies (6%) being the most frequent cooperation partners of GPs. 15%–20% of papers each dealt with 'early detection', 'information provision' and 'cardiovascular prevention'. Secondary (53%) and tertiary prevention (43%) was more often the subject of research than primary (39%) and quaternary prevention (15%). Healthy subjects (26%) were less often studied than people with pre‐existing conditions (42%) and risk factors (48%). Little information was available on preventive activities in terms of gender, young people, migration background, housing conditions or educational background. Personal counselling (15%) was the most frequently described approach to health promotion in general practices, along with printed information materials (10%). This scoping review provides information on which to base targeted interventions and future research that can contribute towards transforming general practices into promoters of health within the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Establishing primary care research networks (PCRNs) makes it easier to conduct clinical trials and health services research in a general-practice setting. Since February 2020, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has sponsored the development of six PCRNs and a coordination unit throughout Germany, with the aim of setting up a sustainable outpatient research infrastructure to raise the quantity and quality of primary care.The present article describes the design of a PCRN in Dresden and Frankfurt am Main - SaxoForN - and explains its structure and how it operates. The network is a transregional alliance between the two regional PCRNs named "SaxoN" (Dresden/Saxony) and "ForN" (Frankfurt am Main/Hesse), both of which run transregional and local research projects. For this purpose, joint standards and harmonized structures, for example with respect to the data infrastructure, qualifications, participation, and accreditation, were agreed upon and implemented at both sites.A critical success factor will be whether and to what extent the standards and structures, as well as resource planning, can be designed sustainably enough to permit the PCRNs to carry out high-quality research over the long term. To achieve this, the PCRNs will have to attract new practices and build up lasting relationships with them, qualify the research practices in order to standardize processes as far as possible, and regularly document their basic information and healthcare data., (© 2023. The Author(s).)