Birinci basamak sağlık hizmetlerinin kalitesinin değerlendirilmesine yönelik küresel çabaların genel değerlendirmesi

The quality of health care has been the subject of research for many years. However, the studies have mostly focused on the problems of clinical medicine, and relatively little work has been done on the quality of primary health care. As the health systems around the world are faced with social, economic, and demographical challenges, countries started to lean towards primary health care which can adapt and respond to an ever-changing world. Quality primary health care is shown to provide accessible, affordable, comprehensive, continuous, coordinated and people-centered care in the community. It plays an important role in ensuring equity in health, reducing morbidity and mortality, optimizing efficient use of resources, achieving better health outcomes, and improving the health of populations. Over the past decades, quality improvement has received increasing attention as a systematic approach guided by scientific evidence-based data; and is regarded the crucial component of health systems strengthening. The global health community has made concrete efforts to improve the quality of health care across primary, secondary and tertiary levels of health systems. Several organizations have developed frameworks and quality indicators to be used as quality assessment tools, and countries have defined their own national frameworks, quality indicators and standards to assess the quality of primary health care. The current study aims to provide a chronological review of the global efforts towards quality assessment in primary health care.