On content of practice. An Icelandic multicentre study, population, practices and contacts

To establish data on the content of Icelandic family practice, a prospective practice audit was made of all Icelandic health centres with computerized contact data from 1 January to 31 December 1988. The study comprised 17 community health centres in Iceland and their target populations, 13 rural and four urban. The main subjects for study were population characteristics, practice sizes, types of health care providers, and contacts. The study population, 50,865 subjects, comprised 20.2% of the Icelandic population. Rural and urban populations were different and are described separately. The 17 health centres had a mean of 1,152 subjects/doctor. The target population had a total of 257,188 contacts: 155,526 rural contacts, 5.1/subject (3.3 office-, 1.1 phone-, and 0.4 home-contacts); 101662 urban contacts, 5.1/subjects (2.8 office-, 1.6 phone-, and 0.4 home-contacts). During 1988, 88.9% of the rural target population made contact. These data are comparable to data from other countries; the observed office and home contact rates were similar, but phone-calls were more frequent. Computer systems in family practice provide a feasible way to collect data on a regular basis for epidemiological purposes and for performance review.