PORTUGUESE NATIONAL PROGRAM FOR DIABETES-MELLITUS - THE GENERAL-PRACTITIONERS CONTRIBUTION

The Portuguese national diabetes care programme was recently reviewed, taking into account the recommendations of the St. Vincents Declarati on. An organized care scheme was organized, based in the health center s' network that provides primary health care to the population, in whi ch general practitioners have a key role in organizing and delivering care. A system based in two permanent information systems (the Sentine l Network and a Basic Information Sheet (BIS) adapted from the DIABCAR E BIS) has been set up, and has so far provided information on epidemi ological data such as prevalence and incidence of diabetes, and the Po rtuguese BIS has already been validated. Future tasks for this system include continuing quality assessment of the process and outcome of ca re.