Views of general practitioners in the Oxford region on microcomputing and collaboration with health authorities and family practitioner committees

Abstract

A postal questionnaire was sent to the senior partners of all 353 general practices in the Oxford region to investigate their interest in microcomputing and in pooling data with other general practitioners, health authorities and family practitioner committees. The response rate was 58%. Twenty per cent of responders already used a microcomputer and a further 59% intended to purchase a microcomputer for the practice. Nearly all the practices with an interest in microcomputing wanted to use it to produce age-sex registers, to establish recall groups and for repeat prescribing. Approximately 90% of interested practices reported that they would be prepared to link their data with family practitioner committees or health authorities, while 76% were interested in collaborating with other general practitioners for research. The results show that general practitioners will require support in utilizing the data that they produce.