Multimorbidity: negotiating priorities and making progress

Patients with multimorbidity are increasingly common in general practice. Multimorbidity is a challenge for both patients and practitioners because of the complexity of care and its impact on patients' lives. Single-disease-based guidelines are of limited use to providers managing patients with multimorbidity.

The article aims to discuss how multimorbidity can be best managed in general practice. It does this within the framework of a patient-centred approach that recognises the importance of finding common ground with patients in setting priorities and assessing the impact of care.

Providing effective care for multimorbidity requires shared decision-making about goals with patients and more effective communication and coordination between providers. For this group of patients, our current single-disease-based models of care need to be replaced with more integrated ones in which the impact of all the patient's conditions on their quality of life are considered.