Original scientific paper
Assessing Primary Care in Croatia: Could it be Moved Forward?
Mladenka Vrcić Keglević
; Foundation for the Development of Family Medicine in Croatia, Zagreb, Croatia
Luka Kovačić
; University of Zagreb, School of Medicine, School of Public Health »Andrija [tampar«, Department of Social Medicine and Organization of Health Care, Zagreb, Croatia
Gordana Pavleković
; University of Zagreb, School of Medicine, School of Public Health »Andrija [tampar«, Department of Social Medicine and Organization of Health Care, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
It is well known that countries with strong primary care achieve better health outcomes at lower costs. Therefore, the
effort of World Health Organization in promoting primary care as a basic principal of successful health care system is an
ongoing process. Although Croatia was recognized as a country with primary care orientation due to the development of
health centers and introduction of specialist training of general practitioners, it seems that many health care reforms
aimed at better organization of health institutions and decreasing of health care costs did not result with higher primary
care orientation. By application of the Primary Care Score instrument in 2014 (Croatia received 11.2 out of 20 possible
points), and international comparison performed in 2002, it was concluded that among the eighteen OECD countries
Croatia could be categorized as an »intermediate primary care country«, obtaining the scores just a bit above the average.
Keywords
primary care; health assessment; primary care score instrument; public health; Croatia
Hrčak ID:
147516
URI
Publication date:
29.12.2014.
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