title: Continuous quality improvement through use of perinatal clinical record and AGUSTINA database.
abstract: This paper reviews the development of the field of medical informatics in Latin America. It also describes the results of a computer-based data management system, named AGUSTINA, which is comprised of maternal and infant data on 7570 deliveries that occurred between June, 1990 and December, 1996 in a hospital in the surroundings of Buenos Aires, Argentina. These data were fundamental for the instrumentation of preventive community-oriented activities in the area. Finally, this paper describes recommendations for future actions in the area of medical informatics in Latin America.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  PCR: perinatal clinical record; CLAP, Centro Latino-Americano de Perinato-logia; WHO, World Health Organization; PAHO, Pan-American Health Organization; E-Mail, electronic mail; WWW, world wide web; FTP, file transfer protocol.
authors.affiliation: Division of Tocoginecology, Hospital Manuel Belgrano, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Manetti
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rodas
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Morici
authors.forename: R G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Fernandez
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tonietto
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Oliveri
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001118:Argentina / Q000453:epidemiology; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007226:Infant Mortality; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D018743:Perinatal Care / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011256:Pregnancy Outcome / Q000453:epidemiology*; D017749:Total Quality Management