The cost of tracking a cohort of women in a general practice using rubella immune status as an example

To measure the cost of tracking for rubella immunisation status.

A 6 month prospective cohort study tracking all 25 and 26 year old women registered with suburban middle class general practice.

357 women were registered as at 12 October 1992. 44% lived more than 3 km from the general practice building and 14% had no contact telephone. Culling the clinical records gave the general practice information on rubella status for 28% of women. Sending two letters and two telephone calls to the remainder resulted in an increase to 59% of women where the general practice had information about rubella status (chi 2 = 71.26, df = 1, p < 0.001). An inability to contact women was the major reason why 143 women did not have their rubella status known by the general practice. Information on rubella status was available in only 20% of women who had not given a contact telephone number to the general practice, compared to 67% of women who had given a contact telephone number (chi 2 = 38.38, df = 1, p < 0.001). Culling records and sending one letter was the most efficient use of resources. The total cost per woman screened in this study was $9.94.

More general practice research is needed to determine all the costs of screening for important medical conditions.