This article aims to discuss the strategies for answering the rehabilitation needs of persons with leprosy-related disabilities in integrated settings through primary health care (PHC) services and community-based rehabilitation (CBR). While the provision of rehabilitation services through the PHC system remains problematic in most developing countries, the article concludes that CBR programmes...

E ffective Jan. 1, 2015, Medicare began paying for chronic care management (CCM), recognizing the value that primary care brings to health care. This article provides you with information and tools that your practice needs to bill for these services. The requirements are numerous, but this new revenue could have a significant impact on your practice’s bottom line. See “Other CPT changes of note...

Access to health care, the timely use of personal health services to achieve the best possible health outcomes, remains a fundamental problem for children in the United States. To date, research and interventions addressing children's access to care have largely focused on policy-level features of the health care system (such as health insurance and geographic availability of providers) with so...

The topic of this presentation is, of course, very vast, and much discussion has occurred in recent years. For example, it is widely recognized that the extension of basic health services to underserved rural areas and slums is essential everywhere. Secondly, it is apparent that this can only be done by means of primary health care (PHC) workers which, in turn, implies that the government of th...

Shortages in, and maldistribution of, the primary health care workforce will continue to limit access to health care. The current health reform proposals and policies recognise workforce development as a priority, but only partially address the barriers to improvement. In particular, there will need to be more systematic development of interdisciplinary education within primary health care serv...

Internationally, there is extensive empirical evidence that a strong primary care-led health system is associated with improved health outcomes, increased quality of care, decreased health inequalities and lower overall health-care costs. Within primary care, factors influencing access to, and utilisation of, general practitioner (GP) services have been widely examined and this paper focuses on...

We suggest that the optimal approach to building capacity in global mental health care will require partnerships between professional resources in high-income countries and promising health-related institutions in low- and middle-income countries. The result of these partnerships will be sustainable academic relationships that can educate a new generation of in-country primary care physicians a...

In 1920, the Dawson report advocated a population based approach to the organisation of health services, the allocation of resources, and the training of health care staff. It also introduced the concepts of primary and secondary levels of care and of primary care health centres. For several decades these ideas lay dormant, until medical specialisation, fragmentation of health services, and the...

BACKGROUND The Quality and Costs of Primary Care in Europe (QUALICOPC) study aims to analyse and compare how primary health care systems in 35 countries perform in terms of quality, costs and equity. This article answers the question 'How can the organisation and delivery of primary health care and its outcomes be measured through surveys of general practitioners (GPs) and patients?' It will al...