Information Systems, Statistical Information Availability and Decision Making in the Primary Health Care Level of the City of Buenos Aires.

The availability of statistical information is usually associated with 'better decision making', fundamentally within the paradigm of evidence-based decisions. Thus, it is interesting to understand the demands and expectations, interpretations and effective use of statistical information by decision-makers at the primary health care level, considering the implications of the recently implemented Information System in Public Health (Buenos Aires, Argentina).

Evaluation of the Association Between Different Patient Indexing Strategies and Effective Indexing in Health Centers of the Public System of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires: An Exploratory Study.

During the implementation of an electronic health record (EHR) system in the public system of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, different patient indexing strategies were devised and implemented. We sought to assess the association between these strategies and effective indexing (proportion of patients who are indexed and have a consultation registered in the EHR). Strategies were grouped into three modalities (High, Intermediate, and Low intensity). We estimated hazard ratios (HR) comparing the High and Low intensity to the Intermediate strategies. The crude analyses showed a significant difference between the curves (p < 0.0001). In the multivariate analysis, the HRs of High and Low intensity interventions showed on average, values above 1 from 0 to 90 days compared to the Intermediate intensity strategy (High: 2.08 (1.65, 2.52); Low: 2.59 (2.29, 2.9)). From that point on, the HRs of both strategies were not different from 1.