Contribution of primary care to health systems and health: Is it essential?

Contribution of primary care to health systems and health: Is it essential?

Evidence of the health promoting power of primary care has increased ever since investigators have been able to differentiate primary care from other characteristics of the health services delivery system. Studies constantly show that primary care has a positive effect on health results. It reduces mortality and morbidity, and it is considerably more lucrative than specialty based care. Therefore primary care is essential. Some of the beneficial impacts of primary care on health are:

- It increases contact to needed services,

- There is better quality of care,

- There is a greater focus on prevention,

- There is early managing of health problems,

- The cumulative effect of the main primary care delivery characteristics, and

- It reduces needless and sometimes potentially harmful specialist care.

Primary care raises access to health services for somewhat deprived population groups.

It is the first point contact with health services, it make possible entry to the rest of the health care system for those people who need it. Other developed nations have attained universal and fair access to primary health services, some of them directly provided and others through assurance of financial coverage for visits (van Doorslaer, Koolman, and Jones 2004). In the United States, socially disadvantaged populations are more likely than advantaged population to lack a regular source of healthcare. The beneficial impact of health insurance in the United States is largely to ease access to primary care (Starfield and Shi 2004; Lillie Blanton and Hoffman 2005). In the deficiency of health insurance, socially disadvantaged population groups are less likely...

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...quickly to the major issue facing primary care physicians our current health care system will assuredly find itself in a deeper and darker ditch. The dilemma is that there is a major drain of primary physicians and few medical students are actually choosing to become primary care physicians and opt to become specialists because of the better hours, better pay and fewer responsibilities (Editors and Staff, Drug Week, 2009). It is important to increase the number of medical school graduates in order to increase the ratio of doctor per person, Cuba is the leading country with a ratio of 1 doctor per 175 people while the US is 1 per 390 (Wikipedia, Cuba), Our government’s should make medical schools more affordable, either by regulating medical school costs or by increasing the amount of financial aid given to students.