Abstract
BackgroundPrimary care (PC) allows patients to address most of their health needs and is essential for high quality healthcare systems. The aim of the study was to analyze the insight of nine core dimensions of Polish PC system: “Economic conditions”, “Workforce”, “Accessibility”, “Comprehensiveness”, “Continuity”, “Coordination”, “Quality of care”, “Efficiency” and “Equity” and to identify the characteristics of the providing physicians that influence their perception of the quality of care.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted as part of an international QUALICOPC project. In Poland a nationally representative sample of 220 PC physicians was selected from the database of Polish National Health Fund by a stratified random sampling procedure. The research tool was a standardized 64-item questionnaire. Each of the respondents’ answers were assigned a numerical value ranging from−1 (extremely negative) to +1 (extremely positive). The quality indicators were calculated as an arithmetic mean of variables representing particular PC dimensions.ResultsThe mean scores for the majority of the dimensions had negative values. Accessibility of care was perceived as the best dimension, while the economic conditions were evaluated most negatively. Only a small part of variation in quality evaluation could be explained by physicians’ characteristics.ConclusionsThe negative evaluation of primary care reflects the growing crisis in the health care system in Poland. There is an urgent need to apply complex recovery measures to improve the quality of primary care.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12875-016-0550-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
IntroductionThe aim of the study was to analyze the insight of nine core dimensions of Polish Primary care (PC) system: “Economic conditions”, “Workforce”, “Accessibility”, “Comprehensiveness”, “Continuity”, “Coordination”, “Quality of care”, “Efficiency” and “Equity” and to identify the characteristics of the providing physicians that influence their perception of the quality of care
Primary care (PC) allows patients to address most of their health needs and is essential for high quality healthcare systems
The QUALICOPC (Quality and Costs of Primary Care in Europe) study coordinated by the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL), following the same logic, aims to evaluate primary care systems in Europe at three levels of care: the system level of PC, provision level and the level of users of PC services
Summary
The aim of the study was to analyze the insight of nine core dimensions of Polish PC system: “Economic conditions”, “Workforce”, “Accessibility”, “Comprehensiveness”, “Continuity”, “Coordination”, “Quality of care”, “Efficiency” and “Equity” and to identify the characteristics of the providing physicians that influence their perception of the quality of care. Quality assurance in general practice is defined by the World Organization for National Colleges and Academies of General Practice/ Family Medicine (WONCA) as “a continuous process of Kringos et al within the framework of Primary Health Care Activity Monitor for Europe (PHAMEU) project, Krztoń-Królewiecka et al BMC Family Practice (2016) 17:151 performed in 2009/10, identified the following ten core dimensions of any primary care system: “Governance”, “Economic conditions”, “Workforce”, “Accessibility”, “Comprehensiveness”, “Continuity”, “Coordination”, “Quality of care”, “Efficiency” and “Equity”, allocating each of them either to the structure, process or outcome level, according to Donabedian’s categorization [15, 16]. As the dimension “Governance” was considered relatively distant from everyday reality in PC, it has not been included in the questionnaire for primary care physicians [18]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
