[Cooperation guidelines--a contribution to the development of process quality in psychiatric community management]

Cooperation in the provision of care to individuals with chronic psychiatric illnesses represents a significant criterion for quality. In the Tuebingen administrative district, guidelines for cooperation in the handover of patients to facilities providing follow-up care and in parallel care of patients have been developed. Elements of the guidelines include handover standards, case conferences and case management. The results of accompanying research are encouraging, while indicating the necessity of continued discussion in the individual facilities and in the relevant authorities: The acceptance of the guidelines is high and they are considered useful in concrete practice, but implementation is sometimes hesitant and the instrument provided for documentation is barely used due to time limitations. Only by means of compulsory basic documentation will it be possible to evaluate the guidelines and secure the criteria for quality on a long-term basis. As with other models, integration of neurologists and psychiatrists in private practice into the cooperation with inpatient and outpatient facilities is a problem that must yet be resolved.