Epidemiology in primary care: opportunities and challenges

Background Primary care-based data are an important source of information on the population's health and care delivery. By its long history of observational studies, peer reviewed and national publications, the Belgian network of Sentinel General Practices (SGP) provides knowledge about epidemiological trends and quality of care. The SGP is a voluntary, paper-based, continuous and representative network. Besides the extensive SGP data, the Health Services Research unit also collects data from GP samples or the total GP population. In the latter, quality of care studies, data are extracted from electronic health records (EHR), combined or not with prompt data input from GPs. In the near future, all GP data will be collected this way. This transition presents opportunities and challenges.