Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2011 Dec;29(4):222-6.
doi: 10.3109/02813432.2011.628241.

The medico-professional quality of GP consultations assessed by analysing patient records

Maisa Kuusela  1 , Anna-Liisa Koivisto, Paula Vainiomäki, Tero Vahlberg, Päivi Rautava
Affiliations

The medico-professional quality of GP consultations assessed by analysing patient records

Maisa Kuusela et al. Scand J Prim Health Care. 2011 Dec.

Abstract

Objective: To assess the medico-professional quality of consultations by analysing textual data from patient records.

Design: Qualitative analyse of textual data.

Setting: Four primary health care centres using electronic patient records (EPR) in Finland.

Subjects: EPR and paired questionnaires of 175 consultations filled in by GPs and their patients independently.

Main outcome measures: Medico-professional quality of consultations, quality of care of acute respiratory infections, and hypertension.

Results: The medico-professional quality of the consultations was quite good. However, 9% of the records could not been assessed at all because of missing or poor documentation and 9% were assessed as poor. The treatment of acute respiratory infections and hypertension is not in line with current care guidelines. Smoking habits or other health behaviour or lifestyle factors were seldom recorded.

Conclusions: The medico-professional quality of the consultation was quite good. Quality improvement is needed in the treatment of acute respiratory infections and hypertension. User-friendly EPR systems would improve the content of patient records.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Hippisley-Cox J, Pringle M, Cater R, Wynn A, Hammersley V, Coupland C, Hapgood R, Hosfield P, Teasdale S, Johnson C. The electronic patient record in primary care: Regression or progression? A cross sectional study. BMJ. 2003;326:1439–43. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Goudswaard AN, Lam K. Stolk RP ja Rutten GEHM. Quality of recording data from patients with type 2 diabetes is not a valid indicator of quality of care: A cross-sectional study. Fam Pract. 2003;20:173–7. - PubMed
    1. Vainiomäki S, Kuusela M, Vainiomäki P, Rautava P. The quality of electronic patient records in Finnish primary healthcare needs to be improved. Scand J Prim Health Care. 2008;26:117–22. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Delpierre C, Cuzin L, Fillaux J, Alvarez M, Massip P, Lang T. A systematic review of computer-based patient record system and quality of care: More randomized clinical trials or a broader approach? Int J Qual Health Care. 2004;16:407–16. - PubMed
    1. Winblad I, Hyppönen H, Salo S, Reinikainen K, Reponen J. Onko tietokone aikavaras? [Do computers steal too much attention during physician consultations?] (in Finnish, English summary) Suomen lääkärilehti [Finn Med J] 2009;64:3956–9.

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources