This is FaMe-Net
Family Medicine Network (FaMe-Net) is a practice-based research network (PBRN) affiliated to the Radboud University Medical Centre in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. FaMe-Net is the world’s oldest (1967) and still functioning PBRN. It is known for highly accurate and uniform registration.
Mission
FaMe-Net aims to contribute to scientifically improving the quality of general practitioner care.
To this end, the foundation uses systematically obtained data on patient contacts in general practice.
Vision
We believe it is important to substantiate family medicine by coding uniformly; taking into account individual patient factors, daily functioning and patient context.
We find it important that the data and information we collect are (partly) freely accessible for use by third parties.
We facilitate scientific research and publications that use our data to interpret general practice care.
We support the use of our data for education and training of healthcare providers such as medical students, general practitioners and specialists.
Strategy
The general practices affiliated with the foundation record the following data uniformly and systematically:
- Patient’s Reason for Encounter (RFE), diagnosis and diagnostic and therapeutic interventions performed by the general practitioner (according to the ICPC (International Classification of Primary Care))
- Comprehensive context data of the patient
- Functioning of the patient
- The episode in which the patient’s question results in the final diagnosis and policy.
The foundation supports practices to ensure uniformity and thus quality of data through regular meetings and coding agreements.
Participating general practices
Currently (2022), FaMe-Net covers 6 general practices with more than 40.000 patients and 35 GPs.
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| Current general practices | Number of enlisted patients (2022) |
Start date of registering within FaMe-Net |
|---|---|---|
| Huisartsenpraktijk Amstelveen-Zuid | 3774 | 17-04-1989 |
| Huisartsenpraktijk Oosterhout | 9847 | 02-12-2012 |
| Universitair gezondheidscentrum Heijendael | 5447 | 01-01-2013 |
| Huisartsenpraktijk Thermion | 11333 | 13-05-2013 |
| Huisartsenpraktijk Bast en van Damme | 2225 | 01-06-2019 |
| Wijkgezondheidscentrum Lindenholt | 9950 | 01-01-2021 |
| Total | 42576 |
| Previous general practices | Number of enlisted patients at end of registration |
Start date of registering within FaMe-Net |
End date of registering within FaMe-Net |
|---|---|---|---|
| Huisartsenpraktijk Franeker (Het Bolwerk) | 5660 | 01-01-1995 | 31-12-2016 |
| Huisartsenpraktijk Olst (P. Dijksterhuis) | 2533 | 01-09-2001 | 31-12-2018 |
Historic background
In the Netherlands, almost all inhabitants are listed with a general practitioner (GP) / family physician (FP), who deals with all health problems requiring professional medical care and is the gatekeeper to specialist care. The Dutch health care is explained here.
FaMe-Net is the continuation of two PBRNs, that merged in 2013: the Continuous Morbidity Registration (CMR) Nijmegen, which has been registering epidemiology since 1967, and the ‘Transition Project’ from Amsterdam, which has been registering since 1985. Both are built around episode registration, in which all information belonging to one health problem comes together in an episode of care.
The founding father of the world’s first PBRN (the Continuous Morbidity Registration) was Frans Huygen. He was a professor of general practice / family medicine in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, who studied morbidity patterns in families using data from the CMR. He published the first edition of the medical textbook ‘Family Medicine’ in 1978, describing family medicine using data from the CMR.
The founding father of the Transition Project was Henk Lamberts. He was a professor of general practice in Amsterdam (University of Amsterdam) and one of the co-authors of ICPC-1 and ICPC-2. He also developed the concept of the Reason For Encounter.
Inge Okkes described the validity and the value of this concept in her PhD thesis.
With the Dutch textbooks “In het huis van de huisarts” (1991) and “Van Klacht naar diagnose” (1998) they published scientific standard works describing general practice (family medicine) using epidemiological data collected during the Transition Project.
FaMe-Net uses TransHis as the electronic patient record in which the care provided in the general practices is recorded. TransHis is used only by the GP practices participating in FaMe-Net.
Sibo Oskam is the lead developer of the TransHis software, which also collects all data for the scientific FaMe-Net registration during daily practice.
Sibo is employed by Digitalis, a company that supports healthcare providers with intelligent ICT platforms aimed at implementing and integrating guidelines into practice and improving medication safety. Digitalis is a partner of FaMe-Net, responsible for the development, support, hosting and certification of TransHis.
Kees van Boven worked as a GP in a practice of the former Transition Project. He supervised the fusion to FaMe-Net and the transition to TransHis in the former CMR practices. As a researcher, he and Sibo Oskam developed the computer programme in which the epidemiological figures are calculated as can be seen on the morbidity data pages on this website.
Makers of Morbidity data platform
Hilde Luijks
Michael Ricking
Gert-Jan Kreeft
Floris van de Laar
Kees van Boven
Sibo Oskam
The board of FaMe-Net
Annemarie Uijen
Chair
Mark van der Wel
Treasurer
Carla Walk
Coördinator
Henk Schers
Rogier Jaspers
Bertine Bast