General practice activity in Australia 2000-01

This publication is the eighth in the General Practice Series produced by the General Practice Statistics and Classification Unit, a Collaborating Unit of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and The University of Sydney. It reports results of the third year of the BEACH program, April 2000 to March 2001. Data reported by 999 general practitioners on 99,900 GP-patient encounters are used to describe aspects of general practice in Australia: the characteristics of the general practitioners and their patients; the types of services the GPs provide; the problems managed and the treatments provided at encounters. Information is also reported on patient body weight to height ratio, smoking status and alcohol use of sub-samples of patients. Changes in the relative rates of management of specific morbidities and changes in management techniques adopted by GPs are investigated, for the period April 1998-March 2001, the first three years of the BEACH program.