More than 600 EMIS practices have been contributing anonymised patient data for a number of years, with records that extend back to the early 1990s. This makes it a large, rich database of general practice information.

To date the information gathered in the QResearch database has been used in a wide ranging number of research publications, covering topics such as drug safety, the influence of aspirin and risk factors for pneumonia.

QResearch has given rise to a number of other projects, which use the research findings to help improve healthcare.

Projects include:

• QFlu^®– monitoring and tracking the prevalence of the swine flu outbreak in 2009, reporting to the Health Protection Agency

• QSurveillance^® – tracking of incidents that may have an adverse effect on health, such as the number of respiratory-related illnesses reported following the Buncefield fire in 2005
• QRisk2^® – a new cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk score, designed to identify people at high risk of developing CVD in order to help reduce their risk of developing CVD www.qrisk.org
• QDscore^® – risk analysis of diabetes, depending on lifestyle factors www.qdscore.org.

Visit www.qresearch.org if you would like to contribute your practice records to the QResearch database.