Primary care systems across Europe are under pressure and pharmacists could be part of the solution. In the UK, a shortage of general practitioners (GPs) prompted efforts to expand multidisciplinary teams, including the integration of pharmacists into general practice. A decade later, the results are mixed: pharmacists brought clear benefits, but lack of integration […]
Category: Primary Health Care
Strengthening supportive supervision of primary healthcare: An experience of integrating ASHA workers
India’s National Health Policy 2017 advocated for comprehensive primary healthcare (CPHC). Subsequently, Ayushman Bharat Program 2018 led to the upgradation of existing Sub-Health Centres and Primary-Health Centres into Health & Wellness centres (HWCs) to operationalize CPHC. However, to improve the performance of these HWCs, close supportive supervision is required. Supportive supervision in its traditional […]
Integrating community based rehabilitation services with primary health care: a need of the hour
Rehabilitation has often been incorrectly perceived as an expensive and specialised clinical service required only by a selected few, suffering from disability. Whenever one hears the word “Rehabilitation”, the image created in one’s mind is of an institutional setup with state-of-the-art equipments and highly trained manpower located in an urban setting. As per the […]
Primary care physicians and clinical courage – stories from tribal Rajasthan, India
A physician practising in a remote and resource constrained setting is frequently faced with clinical situations which fall in the grey zone at the fringe of her/his competence and comfort level. In such situations, most doctors choose to refer patients to next level of care citing the poor infrastructure, and absence of the needed […]
Planetary health care and Barbara Starfield´s legacy
Barbara Starfield advanced academic scholarship on the role of primary care in health systems and universal health coverage. Her research on equity contributed to evidence-informed health policymaking1. On June 10th 2021, we commemorate her 10th death anniversary. Starfield described four attributes of primary care- first contact, continuity of care, comprehensiveness, and coordination – and […]