Around 60 participants met in the CIIT auditorium on 13 November for the fifth network meeting of the Parkinson's Network Ostwestfalen-Lippe+ (PNOWL+). The focus was on specialist presentations and discussions in working groups aimed at improving dialogue and the quality of treatment for people with Parkinson's disease.
The network and its aims
PNOWL+ is a network of partners from the health, science and business sectors. The aim is to improve the care and support of people with Parkinson's disease in East Westphalia-Lippe. The inIT is co-founder of the network.
Opening by the project manager
Project manager Prof. Dr Christoph Redecker, Head Physician for Neurology and Neurogeriatrics, opened the network meeting with an overview of the current status and an outlook on the network's future plans. He was particularly pleased about the establishment of a patient advisory board and introduced the representatives.
Professional lecture and interprofessional case discussion
Prof. Dr. Björn Falkenburger from Dresden University Hospital then gave a presentation on the development and implementation of a patient school for Parkinson's patients. He discussed the content and focus that is most relevant to patients and shared his experiences and challenges in implementing such programmes.
In addition, an interprofessional case conference has evolved from previous network meetings and has become well established. Dr Jorge Plümer from the University Clinic for Neurology at the Evangelical Hospital Bethel in Bielefeld presented the case of a patient whose clinical picture was initially atypical for Parkinson's disease and posed a diagnostic challenge. The presentation sparked a lively discussion and highlighted the importance of multi-professional exchange within the network.
Work in the working groups
After a short break, work was carried out in four thematic working groups: App Development, Atlas for Healthcare Providers and Member Recruitment, Qualification and Further Training as well as Training for Patients, in order to exchange ideas, collect ideas and discuss further work steps. The patient education working group met for the first time.
In the App Development working group, inIT employees Christoph-Alexander Holst and Patrick Gaudl from the inIT Discrete Systems research group headed by Prof. Dr. Volker Lohweg reported on the progress of the PD-Assist app. In addition to functions for recording movement data and therapy and medication plans, a new chat function has been integrated to facilitate the exchange of information between caregivers and patients. Future plans include the integration of customised Small Language Models (SML), which was met with great interest and immediately led to new development ideas.
Outlook for the future
The plenary session concluded with a summary of the results of each working group. Prof. Dr. Christoph Redecker closed the successful network meeting by thanking the participants and looking forward to the next network meeting in 2025.