Primary Healthcare System
Newton Siele
Chief Executive Officer at Phillips Therapeutics LTD /PhD Candidate Marketing Management| Leadership Coach| Author|
Why It maybe time to consider a Re-designed Patient Journey to optimize Primary care impact
The WHO Alma Ata declaration 1978: Section VII provided what is considered a groundbreaking clarity on the Primary healthcare need, which is to address the main health problems, providing preventive, curative and rehabilitative services and include at least: promotion of proper nutrition and an adequate supply of safe water, basic sanitation, maternal and child care, including family planning , immunization against major infectious diseases, education concerning basic health problems and the methods of preventing and controlling them, and appropriate treatment of common diseases and injuries.
Primary care plays a critical role as the point of first contact for all new needs and a place where it is person focused rather than disease focused continuous care over time while providing Comprehensive care for all needs that are common in the population . This also allows for Coordinating care for both those needs and for needs that are sufficiently uncommon to require special services .
It is imperative for governments to bring out the opportunity that primary offers as the central function within a health system . The primary care acts like the window that provides how the rest of the system is likely to function if not burdened. In developing countries , majority of which are in Africa the role of health improvement becomes so critical due to limited resources that government is able to allocate in healthcare commissioning.
领英推荐
The Alma Ata goal that defines provision of comprehensive and multidisciplinary primary and community services is a key enabler in effective primary healthcare , so it therefore surprising that in most countries health systems linkage between Primary and secondary care often still operates as a silo with little or no linkage .
Most typical patient journeys have primary care services de-linked from secondary care often prolonging the contact time for patients at highest risk especially in chronic conditions like Cancer , diabetes, kidney with the primary healthcare service provider initiating primary care but blinded to a secondary care expert whose expertise in many cases would provide early intervention so that patients once initiated on treatment, stabilized can be referred back to primary care unit for follow up and monitoring while keeping the secondary care unit in picture.
Redesigning of patient journey increases efficiency and optimal use of resources maximizing long term health outcomes for patient. It also optimizes the meagre resources that most African countries struggle with .
#Healthcaremanagement
Chief Operations Officer at Edo Specialist Hospital
11 个月My key take away from thenlast class was that there was some.level of organisation of the health care system despite the fact its not meeting expectations Also the care that happens are still affordable since most of the patients who present will often engage at the primary health care level before accessing the secondary level
Head Housekeeping and Inpatient services at Marcelle Ruth Cancer Centre & Specialist Hospital
11 个月The class with Mr Newton Siele was quite interesting. He took the class on the role of healthcare managers in healthcare decision making. We were engaged on how healthcare could be improved in African countries. For me the following are some ways African leaders could help improve healthcare delivery int the continent: The African leaders must make a conscious effort not to politized healthcare to their citizens Fund the primary and secondary healthcare to be at pal with other nations of the world Yearly health budget to be increased Government to invest in government hospitals(build, equip and maintain) the tertiary healthcare/need of the people Government to encourage private participation initiative by creating enabling environment.