A quality-improvement project use of a computerized medical database and reminder letters to increase preventive care use in kaiser permanente patients.

Context: Previous studies have suggested that preventive health care measures may be improved by proactive patient-reminder systems and use of electronic medical databases.

Objective: Our objective was to use Kaiser Permanente's (KP's) electronic medical databases to improve the preventive health care delivered to KP patients in Honolulu, HI.

Design: Patients not seen by their primary care physician in more than one year ("low-utilizing patients") and overdue for preventive health care services were identified using KP's electronic medical databases.