A Medical Record and Information System for Primary Health Care in Iceland: The Egilsstadir Project

In Iceland a problem oriented medical record system for primary health care has been developed. A contact-form is used to record data on all contacts between the inhabitants in a district and the health center. A minicomputer is used for retrieval and analysis. One rural health center using this system has been successful in recording a basic set of data on all contacts taking place since 1976 and linking these data to the national register data for the population in the district. Most health centers in Iceland are now adopting this system, because it seems to be: 1. A valuable aid in the treatment of patients, which improves the quality of the treatment. 2. A useful source of information of the health of the population, which among other things makes possible the identification of those at special risk. 3. A good instrument for research and teaching. 4. A useful source of statistics on the primary care services.