Table 2 Objectives, outcome parameters, data collection/sources, work packages and timeline

Optimised care at the end of life

Primary outcome: General Practice End of Life Care Index (GP-EoLC-I): clinical practice and organization of palliative care

Standardized written surveys with GPs

WP2a t₀

WP2b t₁

Secondary outcome: Situation of care, shared decision-making, advance care planning, consideration of therapeutic preferences, preferred place to live and to die.

Guided interviews with relatives of deceased patients (after-death interviews)

WP3a t₀WP3b t₁

Secondary outcome: Indicators for (palliative) care at the end of life based on the Bertelsmann foundation’s fact check 2015:

▪ Chemotherapy for cancer patients in the last month of life,

▪ Insertion of percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube in the last three months of life,

▪ Number of hospitalisation and treatment days in the last six months of life,

▪ Number of patients with general outpatient PC treatments according to the Uniform Value Scale,

▪ Number of prescriptions for specialized outpatient PC and number of first prescriptions within the last three days of life,

▪ Average duration of general and specialized outpatient PC treatments,

▪ Number of patients who died in the hospital.

Clinical data of deceased patients of general practices

WP4a t₀WP4b t₁

Comparative analysis of AOK datasets: Lower Saxony in total vs. Hameln-Pyrmont

WP5a t₀

WP5b t₁

Application of the SPICT-DE

Number of patients in whom the SPICT-DE was applied to identify a PC situation

Patient records

WP9

GPs’ awareness and sensibility for PC situations

Number of patients considered eligible for PC; number of patients with general outpatient PC treatments; number of prescriptions for specialized outpatient PC

Patient records

AOK datasets

WP8

WP5a t₀

WP5b t₁

Effectiveness and practical consequences for GPs

Number of PC actions and interventions for identified patients (e.g. review of current treatment and medication, considering referral for specialist PC, advance care planning.)

Patient records

WP8

WP9