Report pushes electronic data collection for patient care

A new report has encouraged a move to a national electronic data collection in general practice to help doctors make the best decisions about their patients’ care.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report found that general practice data should aim to include a patient’s prescriptions and tests as well as symptom patterns.

It suggests that building on existing systems in a move towards electronic data collection could also be used to help shape health policy.

The institute’s Tracy Dixon says those data collections already in place provide good information about primary health care and general practice.

“What we’re really looking at is how we could draw a lot of that together and how in the future we could collect information that is needed for policy making, for service decisions, for the clinical decisions, in the most efficient way and without impacting upon the doctor’s workload and on patient care,” she said.

She says as Australia’s population becomes more mobile, there needs to be an advancement in primary care data collection.

“Being able to have your information transferred in a complete form from one practitioner to another, if you move doctors then having that doctor able to look at your patient history and make the best possible clinical decision for you at the time is a very important factor,” she said.