The electronic patient record in general practice--a South-African perspective

A research project was undertaken to design an electronic medical record system which will cater for the specific needs of South African general practitioners and their unique requirements. The project was launched by sending out a questionnaire to general practitioners in the Free State, trying to determine their specific requirements and to gain insight into their attitudes and opinions regarding the use of computers, especially the computer-based patient record, in a general practice setting. The results indicated that there was a need to replace the current manual patient record with an electronic version, and that the attitudes of the general practitioners in South Africa were generally favourable regarding implementing and using such a system. Given these results, we can proceed to design a computer-based patient record system, specifically addressing the needs and requirements of the South African general practitioner.