PRIMIS was recently invited to take part in the National Seminar on Electronic Medical Records for Primary Health Care held at the University of São Paulo, in Brazil (18th - 19th November). At the conference, Professor Mike Pringle, Chair of PRIMIS’ Strategic Development Board, discussed the UK primary care experience in adopting electronic records for patient safety and quality improvement.
Brazil has a well-developed global primary healthcare system but one which is still heavily dependent on paper records. Some municipalities have adopted electronic patient records, though uptake is patchy and the quality of recording remains low. However, the Brazilian Ministry of Health has developed an electric records system and is proposing financial incentives for data recording and is encouraging coding using ICD-10.
PRIMIS was pleased to be able to demonstrate its data quality assessment and feedback programme and its support for clinical audit and quality improvement. The Brazilians have expressed a wish to continue to call on PRIMIS’ advice. Another outcome from the conference is a commitment to support research, one strand of which is likely to involve PRIMIS.
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