Figure 1.

Characteristics of the intervention region Eastern Saxony. Germany is shown in light blue, the state Saxony in dark blue, and the intervention region Eastern Saxony in red. Within the intervention region, the three specialized hospital-affiliated outpatient centers are shown that will serve as the structural backbone of Parkinson Network Eastern Saxony (PANOS). The table on the right side gives population characteristics of the six districts within the intervention region. Eastern Saxony has a population of 1.9 million people, of which approximately 15,000 have Parkinson’s disease (PD). * General population numbers were taken from public statistical resources (https://www.statistik.sachsen.de/html/bevoelkerungsstand-einwohner.html). PD cases were calculated based on secondary health data from the biggest local statutory health insurer (AOKPLUS). Criteria were: International Classification of Diseases 10^th revision (ICD10) G20.x and prescription of dopaminergic medication as a validation criterion. The resulting prevalence of 786.69/100,000 matches the one of another recent German-wide epidemiologic study based on secondary health data [12,13] and was the basis for the ^§ calculation of the number of patients per general practitioner (GP)/community-based neurologist. ^# Number of general practitioners (GPs) and number of neurologists was provided by the Association of SHI Physicians. Row “Total” gives the summed numbers for all six districts in the intervention region. Whereas the average number of PD patients per GP varies little between urban and rural districts (14 patients/GP), there was a huge variation in the average number of PD patients per neurologist between rural areas (up to 360 patients/neurologist in Mittelsachsen) and the city of Dresden (126 patients/neurologist).