Handling large data systems in primary care

Health Systems performance depends on several factors (social, economical, etc.). This paper is concerned with the qualitative analysis of different sets of homogeneous data, collected in an European Study of Referrals from Primary Care. Information on doctor and patient identification, practice description, recruitment and followup data for direct referrals and encounter data has been recorded. The influence of the gender factor (doctor/patient) in the rate of referrals is analysed. The use of Data Envelopment Analysis, as a tool for data analysis is explored.