Which primary care model? A qualitative analysis of ward-based outreach teams in South Africa

African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Which primary care model? A qualitative analysis of ward-based outreach teams in South Africa
 
Creator Marcus, Tessa S. Hugo, Jannie Jinabhai, Champak C.
 
Subject primary health care; public health; family medicine; primary care reengineering; community oriented primary care; universal health coverage; ward based outreach teams
Description Abstract: Globally, models of extending universal health coverage through primary care are influenced by country-specific systems of health care and disease management. In 2015 a rapid assessment of the ward-based outreach component of primary care reengineering was commissioned to understand implementation and rollout challenges.Aim: This article aims to describe middle- and lower-level managers’ understanding of ward-based outreach teams (WBOTs) and the problems of authority, jurisdiction and practical functioning that arise from the way the model is constructed and has been operationalised.Setting: Data are drawn from a rapid assessment of National Health Insurance (NHI) pilot sites in seven provinces.Methods: The study used a modified version of CASCADE. Peer-review teams of public health researchers and district/sub-district managers collected data in two sites per province between March and July 2015.Results: Respondents unequivocally support the strategy to extend primary health care services to people in their homes and communities both because it is responsive to the family context of individual health and because it reaches marginal people. They, however, identify critical issues that arise from basing WBOTs in facilities, including unspecific team leadership, inadequate supervision, poorly constituted teams, limited community reach and serious infrastructural and material under-provision.Conclusion: Many of the shortcomings of a facility-based extension model can be addressed by an independently resourced, geographic, community-based model of fully constituted teams that are clinically and organisationally supported in an integrated district health system. However, a community-oriented primary care approach will still have to grapple with overarching framework problems.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor USAID National Department of Health Albertina Sisulu Executive Leadership Programme in Health (ASELPH)
Date 2017-05-31
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — qualitative research
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/phcfm.v9i1.1252
 
Source African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine; Vol 9, No 1 (2017); 8 pages 2071-2936 2071-2928
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1252/2071 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1252/2070 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1252/2072 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1252/2038
 
Coverage South Africa 2015 senior and middle primary health care service providers and managers
Rights Copyright (c) 2017 Tessa S. Marcus, Jannie Hugo, Champak C. Jinabhai https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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