International Primary Care Computing: Proceedings of the IMIA Workshop, Brighton, UK, 5 April, 1990

Primary care, or ambulatory care as it is sometimes called, is a rapidly developing area of information technology. Primary care workers, both in developed and developing countries can greatly benefit from a comprehensive computer support system. Currently, most of the effort and investment in health care computing is made in hospital, or secondary care. As a result, the needs of the primary care workers are often poorly understood or ignored in information technology research and development. These proceedings, in addition to discussing the aspects of computing which apply specifically to primary care, provide an extensive bibliography of the subject which may form a valuable organizational basis for future study.

Table of Contents:
Interfacing Doctors to Computer Systems. Intelligent Clinical Data Entry for General Practice: The PEN Project (B. Horan et al.). Decision Support Systems. Decision Support Systems in Primary Care (R. Engelbrecht). Medical Decision Support (A. Glowinski). Coding. Pan European Clinical Classification (S.G. Shepherd). Screening. Improving the Effectiveness of Screening in General Practice (M. Fitter, P. Norman). Opportunistic Preventative Health Care - Does It Work? (R.M. Crampton). Medical Audit. Communications. Patient-Held Records in Health Care Communications (D. Markwell). The OSI Demonstrator - An Update (A.V. Stokes). Third World IT. The Creation Revolution and Information in the Third World (R. Brittain, S. McMorran). Demography and IT. Population Classifications (B. Jarman). Medical Records. Primary Care Medical Records: A Proposed Structure to Encourage their Use (S. Warshawsky). Direct Data Entry by Medical Personnel (S. Warshawsky et al.) Security and Data Protection. The Six Safety First Principles of Health Information Systems (B. Barber). Education About IT. Computer Education for Nursing Staff Managers (E.S. Pluyter-Wenting, H.B.J. Nieman). Medical Research and IT. Research Use of Routine Data (I.E. Black). The Use of a GP Data Bank in Medical Research (G. Hall, M. Allman). The Exeter Care Card Project (R.J. Hopkins).