General practice registration networks in the Netherlands: A brief report

In the Netherlands, several general practice registrations exist. Groups of general practitioners register elements of patient care according to agree d-upon criteria, and these data are collected in a central database. By mea ns of a questionnaire the authors interviewed the managers of all nine comp uterized registration networks extensively about the possibilities and limi tations of their registration. in addition, respondents answered some quest ions with data from the central database of their network. Various items ar e collected by nearly all the registration networks, while other items are collected by only one network. Answering questions with data from the centr al database turned out to be difficult. Organization and manpower are the m ain obstacles.