A simple primary care information system featuring feedback to clinicians.

A simple information system for primary care clinics was designed to support the USAID funded health system strengthening project in the Suez Governorate in Egypt. This system (FACT-Feedback and Analytic Comparison Tool) was implemented in December 2003 in 14 primary care clinics. The MS Access-based system was designed and prototyped in several months, and was easily and cheaply modified several times after implementation. A total of 128 562 persons have been registered in the system (as of June 2005) and 36 083 visits have been documented. A key feature of FACT is the ease with which clinicians can conduct exploratory research about practice patterns, and variations in them across doctors and the other clinics. This analytic feature enables the clinicians to self-diagnose quality problems and take action accordingly. Several of the clinics have used this feature of FACT to identify important gaps in service use among patients, and have taken steps to remove barriers to promote more appropriate patterns of utilization. The paper reviews the design and implementation issues and early evidence of the system's utility in helping support quality improvement (QI) work in the clinics.