ABSTRACT
The Project "Informatization of the General Practitioner" aimed at networking the work stations of a randomized set of 150 general practitioners equipped with the "Follow-Up System" software, for the collection of information related to the activity carried out, to be electronically transferred to a central unit was developed in the frame of the finalized Project of the National Research Council: "Prevention and Control of the Disease Factors". During the project activity, a study on prescribed hospitalizations was carried out. The contents of items regarding hospitalization diagnosis show that diagnoses concerning diseases included in chapter ICD-9: "Symptoms, signs and morbid conditions not well defined" represent 30.3% of the total; most of these undefined syndromes can be identified under the item "abdominal pain" with 18.2% of cases. Obviously in the case of appendicitis (12.1% of hospitalizations) the hospitalization carried out by the physician resulted to be necessary, in the case of biliary lithiasis (8 cases, 7.4%), the physician could have treated the patient without hospitalization. The interest of such data is to induce a sort of provocation in order to observe, within 8% of hospitalizations following abdominal pain, what rate of hospitalization could be avoided, giving the adequate support to the general practitioner in order to decide the behaviour to have.
Subject(s)
Computer Communication Networks/statistics & numerical data , Family Practice/statistics & numerical data , Hospitalization/statistics & numerical data , Adolescent , Adult , Aged , Child , Child, Preschool , Diagnosis , Female , Follow-Up Studies , Humans , Infant , Italy , Middle Aged , Software/statistics & numerical dataABSTRACT
A Computer Network of General Practitioners (GP's) has been established connecting 110 general practitioners representing a statistically selected national sample, homogeneously distributed all over Italy. The purpose of the network is to increase the epidemiologic surveillance on the health status of the Italian community, to collect useful data on the routine activity of the GP's, to promote computer use among them, and to organize some "ad hoc" investigations on specific subjects (case-control studies). To this purpose, a specific software was developed both to meet the requirements of epidemiological research and to manage general practitioners' clinical files. A working prototype of health card using micro-computer technology is also being experimented on a subset of the GP's.
Subject(s)
Computer Communication Networks/organization & administration , Family Practice , Sentinel Surveillance , Data Collection/methods , Humans , Hypertension/drug therapy , Hypertension/epidemiology , Italy , Practice Patterns, Physicians'Subject(s)
Computer Communication Networks , Family Practice/trends , Adolescent , Adult , Aged , Child , Child, Preschool , Delivery of Health Care/statistics & numerical data , Delivery of Health Care/trends , Diagnosis , Drug Prescriptions/statistics & numerical data , Family Practice/statistics & numerical data , Humans , Infant , Infant, Newborn , Italy , Microcomputers , Middle AgedABSTRACT
A Computer Network of General Practitioners (GPs) has been established, connecting 150 general practitioners representing a statistically selected national sample, homogeneously distributed all over Italy. The purpose of the network is to increase the epidemiological surveillance on the health status of the Italian community, to collect useful data on the routine activity of the GPs, to promote computer use among them, and to organize some "ad hoc" investigations on specific subjects (case-control studies). To this purpose, a specific software was developed, both to meet the requirements of epidemiological research and to manage general practitioners' clinical files. A working prototype of a health card using micro-computer technology will also be experimented with a subset of the GPs.
