What is FIRE?
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FIRE is the oldest and most comprehensive database of routine data from family medicine from electronic medical records in Switzerland
FIRE's objectives.
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Presentation of the quality of care in Swiss family medicine using quality indicators
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Publication of the results in scientific studies
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Support for participating physicians in the continuous improvement of their own quality by means of feedback reports
Background.
Electronic documentation and research in primary care
In 2009, the Institute of Primary Care at the University of Zurich launched the FIRE project («Family medicine Research using Electronic medical records») under the leadership of Prof. Thomas Rosemann (PhD). FIRE is a research database with over 400 participating family physicians*, in which they provide us with structured routine medical data from their electronic medical records.
(*Status: end of July 2023)
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This routine data is a unique and meaningful combination in Switzerland (consultations, diagnoses, vital signs, laboratory data, medication prescriptions), which allows us to map the relevant reality of care. The FIRE project enjoys a high level of trust on the part of general practitioners and has seen a steady increase in the number of participants.
The FIRE project is unique in Switzerland in contributing to quality of care at both the system level and the practice level.
The aim of the FIRE project is to map and improve the quality of care in family medicine. For this purpose, the data from the FIRE project are used for scientific studies with clinical, epidemiological and health services research questions. In addition, the FIRE project measures the quality of care on an ongoing basis using quality indicators and feeds these back to the participating family physicians as a basis of information for their quality development (FIRE Feedback report). Thus, these reports can serve as a basis for «best-practice» examples in quality circles and enable «bottom-up» quality improvement.