[Intersectoral pain treatment. The Algesiologikum group]

Cross-sectoral clinical pathways for chronic pain patients in standard and routine care are a major challenge for the German healthcare system. The Algesiologikum group has developed such clinical pathways including an essential infrastructure. Cooperation partners of the Algesiologikum group are two outpatient medical care units, one neurosurgery practice and four hospitals. In the outpatient sector as well as in the inpatient sector the Algesiologikum group provides a multidisciplinary team caring for chronic pain patients. The range of treatment in the hospitals includes multimodal, invasive and surgical pain therapy. The present report illustrates possibilities and frontiers of the Algesiologikum concept based on all patients treated since 2009.