[The pharmacotherapy circle--a promising way for improving quality in primary medical care]

Rational and efficient pharmacotherapy in a particular quality may be achieved by work in quality control seminars. During the last couple of years, seminars for pharmacotherapy have taken place at the Society of Panel Physicians of the German state Hessen under the supervision and scientific guidance of Lieselotte von Ferber, MD, University of Cologne. The kind of work in these seminars is demonstrated as well as the evaluated results. It can be proven that the quality of the pharmacotherapy is improved together with considerable savings in the costs of drugs without a decrease in the pharmaceutical care of the patients. The seminars for pharmacotherapy may be a suitable method to avoid legal actions for those physicians which may become liable of for compensation because of their high average of prescription costs.