University Of Limerick and Irish College of General Practitioners, Bruff, Limerick, Ireland
Rural Remote Health. 2023 Jan;23(1):8115. doi: 10.22605/RRH8115. Epub 2023 Jan 10.
General practice (GP) in Ireland is almost entirely computerised. Computerised records hold great potential for large-scale data analyses but existing software packages do not readily provide such analyses. For a profession facing considerable workforce and workload challenges, harnessing GP electronic medical record (EMR) data can facilitate critical analysis of general practice activity and can highlight important trends for service planning.
Medical students in the ULEARN network of general practices using the GP EMR 'Socrates' in the Midwest region of Ireland supplied our research team with three reports on consulting and prescribing activity from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2021. The three reports, anonymised on site using custom software, detailed chart activity (i.e. types of notes recorded in patient charts), consultation types and headline prescribing figures.
Preliminary analyses of data from these sites reveal that while consultation activity faltered in the early stages of the pandemic, telephone consultations and prescribing continued apace. Interestingly, childhood vaccination appointments did not falter, whereas cervical smears, which were not allowed due to processing laboratory constraints, stopped for many months of the pandemic. There are differences between how different doctors in different practices record consultation types, which weakens some analyses, particularly when estimating face-to-face consultation rates.
GP EMR data have great potential for highlighting workforce and workload pressures being experienced by Irish general practitioners and GP nurses. Small modifications to how information is recorded by clinical staff would further strengthen analyses.
爱尔兰的全科医学（GP）几乎完全实现了计算机化。电子病历（EMR）系统记录具有进行大规模数据分析的巨大潜力，但现有的软件包并不便于进行此类分析。对于面临大量劳动力和工作负荷挑战的医疗行业，利用 GP EMR 数据可以促进对全科医学活动的关键分析，并突出服务规划的重要趋势。
爱尔兰中西部 ULEARN 网络中的医学生使用 GP EMR“苏格拉底”（Socrates），为我们的研究团队提供了 2019 年 1 月 1 日至 2021 年 12 月 31 日的三份咨询和处方活动报告。这三份报告在现场使用定制软件进行了匿名处理，详细记录了图表活动（即在患者图表中记录的各种类型的笔记）、咨询类型和主要处方数据。
对这些站点数据的初步分析表明，尽管咨询活动在疫情早期有所减少，但电话咨询和处方仍在继续。有趣的是，儿童疫苗接种预约并未减少，而由于处理实验室限制，本应进行的宫颈抹片检查在疫情期间停止了数月。不同医生在不同实践中记录咨询类型的方式存在差异，这削弱了一些分析，特别是在估计面对面咨询率时。
GP EMR 数据具有突出爱尔兰全科医生和 GP 护士所面临的劳动力和工作负荷压力的巨大潜力。对临床工作人员记录信息的方式进行微小修改将进一步加强分析。
