An information system for family practice. Part 3: gathering encounter data.

This paper describes the development of a system for recording encounter data in family practice. The system has been developed by the Department of Family Medicine, University of Western Ontario, and came about as a natural addition to a previously reported method for describing and defining a practice population. The system gathers information on each encounter and includes data concerning the patient, the provider, the location, and certain other details concerning the encounter, including all problems dealt with on that occasion. The storage and analysis of these data are carried out by a computer. The uses of such data are many, and some of them will be dealt with in the fourth and last paper in this series.