[Facilitating scientific data collection systems].

Electronic information systems continuously accumulate huge amounts of quantitative information related to the functioning of primary health care and utilizable in the monitoring of the population's health status, correct allocation of resources and in many types of research. A centralized data bank can function as a general practice research network, the members collecting data both for their own studies and for studies carried out by others. In Finland a computer-assisted "virtual health check" involving the whole population was carried out in Sipoo in 2009.