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 one of the largest and richest general practice databases in the world.

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.