Patient use of a computer for prevention in primary care practice.

A computerized health information system for prevention can provide an efficient way to enhance the doctor-patient interaction and provide patient-specific education materials. A computer system called HealthTouch was developed by family physicians and placed in 29 randomly selected primary care practices in Virginia for 1 year. Data were collected from three sources: randomly selected patients' charts, the HealthTouch data base, and patient telephone interviews. Data from these sources were combined, and frequency distributions and comparisons of responses by demographic attributes were analyzed using the chi-square statistic. During the study year, 9799 adult patients used the HealthTouch system. HealthTouch users were younger, on average, than the overall patient population, and the majority (89%) were either very satisfied or satisfied with the system. Computers are effective tools to collect, organize, and store patient information about prevention.