LIES - Damm lies & STATISTICS!

Yes - I know - statistics can prove or disprove anything, yet we (?) in the scientific and medical community are constantly pouring over and analysing them to seek out 'evidence' of where we do well, and where we need to improve.

SO for me another confession - the result of running an audit of activity 'on-line' at my surgery in the last year. The 'audit tool' we are provided with is very basic, producing a single massive file - too big to fit into excel! So first note to self (and suppliers):

1)  Provide us some basic tools to report on activity - please.

So for the last year from April 2011 to March 2012:

Activity	Count
Repeat Medication Items ordered	5135
Stop Access	5
Make appointment	2254
Log-in	9141
File Change of Address	106
Failed log-on	799
Change Address	109
Cancel Change Address requests	1
Cancel Appointment	711
Archive change of Address	3
	18264

It appears I vastly under assessed the number of patients who use our 'on-line' facility, based on information from another part of my surgery IT system reporting (confusing!!!). We have had 808 individual patients access the surgery system at least once in the last year, which means almost 9% of my surgery list.
So, second note:

2)  Ensure reporting 'on-line' activity is consistent in all modules of IT system.

Before I sit back in bask in the 'warm-glow' of self satisfaction I have to point out there are some wide variations in usage by individuals - evident only by detailed filtering and sorting of the combined report (almost beyond the skill of an ageing, non-technical GP).
The range of 'on-line' usage is from 1 to 857 log-ins per year! There are a number of 'high users' who access our system 100-175 times in a year - using many of the transactional options, however a single user stands out as 'atypical' with 857 successful log-ins in the year and an additional 13 failed attempts. Maximum number of log-ins for that individual is 28 in one day.
Clearly there are other reasons and issues that need addressing separately for this individual, and questions about the benefits and disadvantages for them, the surgery and the wider population and care services.
So third and fourth note (to self and future guidance):

3)  What will be the 'accepted' reasons for withdrawal of Records Access privileges, and the mechanism for appeal?
4)  Can we  have individual reports on usage from the clinical system?

SO totting up the activity I come to an average of 11.3 log-ins per year for active users (or 10.3 discounting our practice enthusiast). So WHEN patients are registered for transactional activity it IS well used - and I am confident it provides a valued additional service AND saves time and money for my surgery.

Last (wishful) note:

5)  Please can I have working reports on patient access to the full GP records that I have enabled? How often are they viewed, and what in particular are patients looking at?

Peter S