MIQUEST

MIQUEST stands for Morbidity Information QUery and Export SynTax.

It provides a method of extracting data in a standardised format from GP software systems. It is not a piece of software, but a written specification of how GP systems should interpret remote queries from organisations.

An organisation who might make a query could be a ICS/Health Board/LSC, Audit group or GP. Queries are searches which interrogate clinical data regardless of clinical system.

The output is a simple text file, and these answers appear in a specific format. The language of the query is a format called Health Query Language (HQL), which is not dissimilar to Structured Query Language (SQL). The search is constructed in a special piece of software called a MIQUEST Enquirer, that validates it against the rules of HQL.

From time to time, an organisation sends a query or set of queries to your practice. You load the file into your system, which then runs the query against your Vision 3 data, using MIQUEST, and produces a text file output (the response file) which is then returned to the organisation.