New health policies on primary health care in greece

Introduction. Modern views about health and its medical, sanitary and financial components impose the reorganization of the health care system and its direction towards regional decentralization and primary health care. Political strategies in Greece have been turned towards this direction years ago. Aim. Present review aimed at presenting the importance of Primary Health Care, describing its organizational and functional framework in Greece, promulgating significant problems that rule its function and suggesting potential interventions which will improve the efficacy of the sector. Methods. Literature research on Greek and foreign language journalism, on books referring to Greek health care services management and on relevant institutional framework was conducted in order to achieve the aim of the study. Results. This review demonstrated that, it is quite unorthodox to maintain that primary health care is a well-organized, well-structured and effective subsystem. A subsystem, which has the strength to definitely affect the overall financial efficiency of the health care system and at the same time satisfy citizens with provided services. Improvement of the organization, the administration and the efficiency of the sector consist the target of the intervention examined and suggested in the framework of the decentralizing and at the same time unifying politic, which follows the triptych of the modern health systems in order to achieve updating, low cost and quality. Conclusions. The formulation of suggestions on the undertaking of specific initiatives requires the inquiring approach of the reasons of the problems and a thorough examination of the delicate and difficult points, which complicate the problems of PHC, in the light of the continually changing circumstances.

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