From prevention and rehabilitative services to providing health education and promotion, primary health care addresses all general health issues of the individual, family, and community throughout a person’s lifetime. Investments to design integrated health care systems based on disease prevention, education, and treatment using a person-centered approach ensures a population’s health and wellbeing.
JSI’s health experts who convened with policy makers, health care workers, and program implementers at two recent health conferences in Ethiopia and Egypt reinforced several aspects of primary health care systems that deliver equitable access to high-quality health care to everyone.
Person-centered care strategies can drive individual and community-led demand and shift health system behaviors.
“Creating health care with people at the center establishes a responsive system that takes into account the precise needs of the individual and community. The focus needs to be on integration of vertical programs for communicable and noncommunicable diseases to ensure holistic provision of user-centered care,” said Soumya Alva, senior monitoring evaluation and learning director of the MOMENTUM Knowledge Accelerator. “We also need to tailor human-centered programs to those most vulnerable.”
Existing community structures should also be involved in governance of primary health care programming. A continuous feedback loop between community members and the programs that serve them is critical to ensure the overall successful care of a person.
Meaningful community engagement, in which policy is informed by and unified with practice in healthcare settings improves immunization coverage.
Leaders and health care practitioners around the world are more aware that major health crises, such as COVID-19, are difficult to control if a community-based response is overlooked.
“Community involvement is essential to foster a healthy culture and ensure that people understand and accept health interventions,” said Noel Kabore, community health officer for the Momentum Integrated Health Resilience project. “Consistent and trusted community and health system connections and communications are essential for delivering effective and equitable primary health care.’’
Rely on data for learning, decision making, and planning in primary health care; there are solutions that can easily be adapted to ensure data are well captured and used.
The use of data for health facilitates client tracking and helps policy makers and health program managers make informed decisions. “To strengthen the primary health care movement globally and move more rapidly toward universal health coverage, we need to use data for service delivery planning,” said Elaine Rossi, associate director and senior advisor at JSI. “We have tools, such as community surveys, that track effectiveness of primary health programs, and we also have digital health technology,” she continued.
An all-encompassing and comprehensive monitoring and evaluation system is also critical to monitor progress, and discuss and find solutions to challenges. “This approach helps people advocate for policies that support comprehensive health services, including those for family planning and reproductive health,” said Chuanpit Chua-oon, chief of party of JSI’s Strengthening Egypt’s Family Planning Program.
Cross-sector collaborations are essential for overcoming primary health care access and equity challenges.
Public and private sector engagement is needed to establish and sustain primary health care. “We need to adapt successful public-private models and approach health systems strengthening as a collaboration among national health programs, private health units, civil society organizations, school and universities, and health and tech companies that can have unique and pivotal roles in enabling higher-quality health systems,” said Dessalew Emaway, project director of the Electronic Community Health Information Systems Scale-up for Health Extension Program Improvement and the Improve Primary Health Care projects.
Family planning and reproductive health are key entry points in an integrated health care system that ensures the health of women, children, and population at large.
Expanding access to high-quality family planning and reproductive health services through primary health care translates to healthier women, children, and ultimately a country’s population. “The Ministry of Health and Population’s Family Planning Sector in Egypt has outreach programs where mobile clinics and community awareness teams provide family planning and reproductive health information, counseling, and services directly to communities,” said Chuanpit. By bringing preventive health care services right to communities, more people are reached regularly with care and reliable information about their health and their options.
Primary health care is at the heart of a strong, equitable health system and healthy society. Prioritizing resources and investments into a system that focuses on keeping people healthy and informed, while preventing disease, is more critical than ever.
By Alex Angel & Marie Maroun
