Summary

Maintaining high-quality health records is integral to good patient care, and has a range of other benefits.

Whole-of-practice strategies for improving data quality in health records include:

• Developing policies and procedures
• Education and training
• Developing a baseline and measuring progress
• Creating an action plan
• Cultivating a culture of good data quality

GPs can improve the quality of their health records by entering structured data in the following fields of the patient health record:

• Allergies and adverse reactions
• Past medical history
• Reason for visit
• Reason for prescription.