Before the advent of automated databases, the study of large cohorts of drug users was extremely expensive and required a major administrative effort to assemble and ensure complete and accurate collection of the required follow-up information. The initial use of computerized information which began in the late 1970s permitted new, highly efficient research. In the UK, traditionally the general practitioner (GP) acts as a gatekeeper to services within the National Health Service. A comprehensive record of prescriptions written, outpatient diagnoses, and referral letters to hospitals resides in the individual patient records that GPs file in their offices. In the late 1980s, VAMP Health, a commercial company, designed and marketed a GP computer system that allowed for comprehensive recording of medical information for individual patients on office computers. Since 1994, the database has been known as the General Practice Research Database (GPRD), has belonged to the UK Department of Health, and is currently maintained by the Medicine Control Agency (MCA). Validation studies of the GPRD have documented the recording of medical data into general practitioners' computers to be near to complete. The GPRD collects truly population-based data, has a size that makes possible to follow-up large cohorts of users of specific drugs, and includes both outpatient and inpatient clinical information. The access to original medical records is excellent. Desirable improvements to the GPRD would be additional computerized information on certain risk factors and linkage to other health care databases.
Learning Objectives: . Dr. García will share the experience of using population based registries of large communities and will illustrate the seminal role they have played to characterize the adverse events of medications
Keywords: Surveillance, Data Collection
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.