Account for primary health care when indexing access and quality

Abstract

It is well established that primary care leads to better health outcomes, lower costs, and greater equity in health, and an important part of a country’s development should be the strengthening of primary health-care services. This way, the health care provided will be comprehensive and people-centred, for all ages and stages of life, incorporating and coordinating health promotion, prevention, acute and chronic care management activities, to deliver equitable access and safe high-quality care. As a consequence, the contribution of primary health care should be acknowledged when assessing the functioning of health systems: use of indicators to measure health reforms that fail to recognise the effective function of primary care and its contribution to health systems and health outcomes will give a skewed and erroneous picture of communities’ and nations’ access to, and quality of, health care