Comparative study of electronic pilot and paper data collection methods in a survey of general practice consultations.

Abstract

Aims The aim of this paper is to report on a comparison of data collection by electronic methods with paper collection methods in the context of a large, nationally representative, survey of general practice consultations in New Zealand. Methods The National Primary Medical Care Survey (NatMedCa), carried out over 2001/2002, was a nationally representative, multistage, probability sample of general practitioners (GPs) and patient visits. The primary purpose of the survey was to collect data on the content of patient visits. In a pilot sub-study of data collection methods, data were captured in the course of consultations using practice management software enhanced with supplementary electronic forms. These data were compared with data from the main NatMedCa survey, which were collected using paper collection methods. This analysis focuses on a subset of the sub-study data comprising data from 10 community-governed, non-profit practices. Results The patient visits data from the four practices in the electronic data collection arm of the study provide evidence for differences in practitioner data reporting, when compared with data from the six practices employing paper collection methods, despite similar patient characteristics. Reasons-for-visit and problems-per-visit data from the electronic arm of the study appeared to be less complete than data from the paper arm. By way of contrast, practitioners using electronic data collection methods had comparatively high rates of recording prescription items per 100 problems. The very low number of reasons-for-visit in the electronic arm indicates a high likelihood of systematic bias in the practices employing electronic data collection methods, as every visit should have had at least one reason for the encounter. Conclusions The findings of the comparison of electronic and paper survey data collection methods are important for researchers intending to carry out general practice-based surveys. Survey data generated routinely via practice management systems may differ considerably from survey data collected using tailored paper collection instruments.