Facilitator Handbook 2005 - PRIMIS

PRIMIS Facilitator Handbook
Introduction
The PRIMIS National Team
Introduction
PRIMIS is a free training and support service to help GPs provide quality patient care by
making the best use of their clinical computer systems and improving data quality and
information management. Launched in April 2000, PRIMIS is currently managed by NHS
Connecting for Health and is based in the Division of Primary Care at the University of
Nottingham.
PRIMIS works with local information facilitators, employed by Primary Care Organisations
(PCOs) or local Health Informatics Services across England, to provide GPs and practice staff
with:
• training in information management skills
• analysis of data quality and key clinical topics
• feedback and interpretation of analyses
• support in developing and delivering action plans to improve data quality.
The benefits to practices and PCOs of participating in a local PRIMIS scheme are outlined
below.
Benefits of participating in a local PRIMIS scheme
• Training for local information facilitators whose role is to help GPs and
other members of primary health care teams assess and improve data
quality and information management, ultimately improving patient care
and ensuring patient safety
• Tools and techniques to assist PCOs in comparative analysis, which will
provide benchmarks as a basis for tackling inequality in access
• Improved chronic disease registers. This facilitates the proactive
management, comprehensive treatment and monitoring of "at risk"
patients
• Assistance for practices in meeting clinical governance agendas and
national service framework requirements
• Support in building and maintaining quality primary care electronic
patient records to support the information requirements of primary care
medical contracts
• Support and advice for practices participating in the quality and
outcomes framework of the new GMS contract
• Better use of clinical information systems to ensure patient safety
• Support for large national information-dependent projects, such as
Electronic Transmission of Prescriptions (ETP), Choose and Book and
GP to GP transfer of data, and data migration to the NHS Care Records
Service, ensuring that data uploaded follows uniform quality standards
2 PRIMIS