In 1992 the Integrated Primary Care Information Project (IPCI) was started by the Department of Medical Informatics of the Erasmus University Medical School. IPCI is a longitudinal observational database that contains data from computer-based patient records of general practitioners throughout the Netherlands. Collaborating practices are spread throughout the Netherlands and the collaborating GPs and population is representative of the Netherlands 5 6.

 

The database contains information on more than 1,000,000 patients. This is the cumulative amount of patients who have ever been part of the dynamic cohort of patients who have been registered. Turnover occurs as patients move and transfer to new practices. The records of ‘transferred out’ patients remain on the database and are available for retrospective study with the appropriate time periods. The International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC) is the coding system for patient complaints and diagnoses (can be mapped to ICD-9), but diagnoses and complaints can also be entered as free text. Prescription data such as product name, quantity dispensed, dosage regimens, strength and indication are entered into the computer. The National Database of drugs, maintained by the Royal Dutch Association for the Advancement of Pharmacy, enables the coding of prescriptions, according to the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification scheme recommended by the WHO. The system complies with European Union guidelines on the use of medical data for medical research and has been proven valid for pharmaco-epidemiological research 6.

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