PRIMARY CARE POLICY

Primary Care Policy

Primary Care Policy

Introduction

The Primary care, as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) is as follows, “Essential health care based on practical methods and technologies, scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods available to all individuals and families in the community through their full participation and at a cost that the community and country can afford to maintain at every stage of their development in a spirit of self-reliance and self-determination. It forms an integral part both of the national health system, which is the central function and main focus, and the overall social and economic development of the community”.

This definition frames a series of actions of public health, whether diagnostic, preventive, curative and rehabilitation that must be made from a local primary and community benefit. Furthermore, if the basic level and types of health care: Primary care and Specialty or hospital care. Primary care is the mechanism by which local and national administration provides better health facilities to the people. Therefore, people enjoy the health facilities with more equity among the population subgroups and at less cost. The primary objective is to organize health systems around for a strong focus on the patient, i.e. primary care (Starfield, 2009, pp. 954-59).Characteristics of primary care

The primary characteristics of primary care are accessibility, the coordination, the comprehensiveness and longitudinality.

Accessibility is the efficient provision of health services in relation to organizational barriers, economic, cultural and emotional.

Coordination is the sum of the actions and efforts of primary care services.

Comprehensiveness is the ability to solve most health problems of the population served (in primary care is about 90%).

The is the longitudinal monitoring of individual health problems of a patient by the same health professionals, physicians and nurses

Discussion

Provisions of Primary Care

Primary care is the basic and initial level of care, ensuring comprehensiveness and continuity of care throughout the patient's life, acting as manager and case manager and flow controller. Include activities of health promotion, health education, disease prevention, health care, maintenance and restoration of health and actual rehabilitation and social work.

Although socio-demographic factors undoubtedly influence health, health systems oriented towards primary health care strategy is a policy of great importance because its effect is clear and relatively fast, particularly with regard to the prevention of progression disease and the effects of injuries, especially at younger ages (Aday, Begley, Lairson, Slater & Aday, 1999, pp. 482-493). Self Care

The practice of individual activities for initiating and conducting maintenance of your own life, health, and welfare '. Self-care theory has its origin in one of the most famous American theorists, Dorothea Orem, born in Baltimore, USA. "The self is an activity of the individual learned from this and goal-oriented. It is behavior that occurs in concrete situations of life, and that the individual goes to itself or to the environment to regulate factors that affect their own development and activity for the benefit of life, health and welfare. 

The basic concept is that developed by Orem self-care defined as the set of intentional actions carried out by the person to ...