Wonca Europe Annual Council Meeting Prague 2013 Agenda Item No. 9: OPENMinds Invitation
OPENMinds Correspondence
From: Martin Johnson [mailto:
Sent: Tuesday, March 12, 2013 2:02 PM
Dear Professor Metsemakers,
Many thanks for your email and for raising those two important questions. Please find my response to your specific questions below:
Why did you/OPENMinds find it necessary to install a separate primary care group instead of joining the specialist group working on one comprehensive guideline?
Recognising that primary care has an important role to play in improving the treatment and management of chronic pain to deliver better patient outcomes, our intention was to create a forum which brings together both: primary care physicians, who have interest in pain and pain specialists to collectively develop initiatives aimed at primary care community. However with regard to thisparticular project we felt that we wanted to concentrate on Primary Care with regard to raising awareness and assessing chronic paincorrectly–asRCGP lead in chronic pain these are two issuesIcontinually see. OPENMinds Primary Care has not been established as a formal organisation, but an alliance of experts which we believe, in partnership with prominent societies such as WONCA, can contribute to the improvements in pain management in primary care across Europe and thus support your overarching goal of fostering and maintaining high standards of care in general practice.
Are the members of OPENMInds Primary Care representing their country, college, national pain organisation or are they interested experts?
Each member of the OPENMinds Primary Care group provide their valued contributions to the planning and implementation of specific initiatives in their individual capacity as an expert in primary care or pain. As well as expertise in the specific field, the members of OPENMinds bring also the knowledge of the specifics of the health systems and standards of care in their countries. I would be happy to share a full list of the OPENMinds members if you would find this information helpful.
Please let me know if wished to discuss this further & I will organise a conference call?
Kind regards
Dr Martin Johnson
Van: Martin Johnson [mailto:
Verzonden: zaterdag 9 maart 2013 12:11
Dear Professor Metsemakers,
Many thanks for your response and interest in the OPENMinds Primary Care initiative. I am happy to provide you with further details on the relationship between Mundipharma and OPENMinds Primary Care.
As detailed within the Annex of the original letter, OPENMinds Primary Care is a pan-European steering group of leading primary care physicians from across Europe who are focused on supporting the primary care community in the effective management of chronic pain. Currently, the lack of regular and effective pain assessment remains a major barrier towards improved pain management across Europe and OPENMinds Primary Care is seeking to address the consistency and regularity of pain assessment in primary care.
OPENMinds Primary Care is supported by an educational grant from Mundipharma who also provide financial and logistical as required. The clinical content is however entirely driven by the professional members on the group. For more information on OPENMinds Primary Care and its relationship with Mundipharma, please refer to the Annex section of the letter, which I have attached to this email for your convenience.
I hope this answers your query with regard to the relationship between Mundipharma and OPENMinds Primary Care. However, if you would like to discuss this in more detail please do let me know and we can arrange a convenient time for a call. Or if it would be helpful, we would be happy to meet with you to discuss our proposal in more detail prior to the WONCA Europe Council meeting in June which would also enable us to share our continued thinking around this European Pain Assessment initiative.
I very much look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards
Dr Martin Johnson