The Julius General Practitioners Network (JHN) is an intensive collaboration between the Department of Family Medicine of the Julius Center of the UMC Utrecht and general practitioner practices in the Utrecht region. It is a network of about seventy general practices with two hundred general practitioners and over 450,000 patients in the Utrecht area. By contributing to scientific research and innovation, JHN helps to improve the quality of GP care for now and in the future and to respond to developments in healthcare. The Department of Family Medicine at UMC Utrecht manages the JHN on behalf of the participating general practitioners. The JHN is run and maintained by the JHN team consisting of a GP coordinator, data manager, project manager, GP researcher, and secretary.

De JHN-database verzamelt de geregistreerde gegevens uit het elektronische medisch dossier van de aangesloten huisartspraktijken Het gaat om gecodeerde gegevens zoals symptomen en diagnoses (ICPC-codes), medicatie (ATC-codes), uitslagen van onderzoeken (bijvoorbeeld laboratorium en bloeddruk), en tekst die de zorgverleners in het medisch dossier noteren; de zogenaamde open tekstvelden, of SOEP-gegevens.

What happens with the data?

Deze gegevens worden 4 maal per jaar automatisch uitgelezen uit het HIS. Een tussenpartij; (Proigia/Calculus) zorgt er voor dat alle gegevens waarmee een individuele patiënt te herkennen is worden gewist. Elke patiënt krijgt een nieuwe code (pseudoniem) waarmee gegevens gekoppeld kunnen worden zonder dat onderzoekers weten om welke patiënt het precies gaat. Dit pseudonimiserings-proces wordt uitgevoerd door zorg TTP.

Through Proigia/Calculus and Zorg TTP, the data enters the JHN database. All data is stored and managed according to the applicable rules and privacy laws.

Figuur 1. Overzicht van betrokken partijen en overeenkomsten bij JHN.

Researchers or parties wishing to analyze data from the JHN network, or conduct research in general practice, should submit an application to the JHN steering committee. This steering committee consists of GPs from the Utrecht GP cooperatives, the JHN team, and researchers from the Julius Center of the UMC Utrecht. The general practitioner representatives from the health care umbrella organizations sit on the JHN Steering Committee in a personal capacity, not as the governing body of the health care umbrella organization.

The JHN Steering Committee assesses in terms of content whether an application is relevant to general practice, whether the research question can be answered with the data, whether the research is feasible in practice, whether the research is methodologically sound, whether applicable laws and regulations have been met, and whether sufficient general practice expertise is involved in the research. After a positive review, the data can be shared with the researcher, or there is a "green light" for researchers to approach family medicine practices in the network to participate in research.