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Primary Healthcare Nursing Module

AIHA Works to Improve Primary Healthcare Systems

Although the global emphasis on primary healthcare began in the late 1970s, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union functioned under heavily regulated governmental systems that did not promote the primary care model until the early 1990s. Instead, systems in these countries placed an emphasis on more costly specialized care and hospital-based, acute care medicine.

Primary Healthcare:
Health by the People
“Primary healthcare is essential healthcare based on practical, scientifically sound, and socially acceptable methods and technology made universally accessible to individuals and families in the community through their full participation and at a cost that the community and the country can afford to maintain at every stage of their development in the spirit of self-determination.” WHO/UNICEF, 1978

Click here to read about the eight essential components of primary healthcare.
Click here to read about the principles of primary healthcare.
Following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, dramatic political changes occurred in this region and many governmental systems dissolved altogether. In 1992, AIHA began working in these countries, partnering US healthcare professionals and institutions with counterpart organizations, hospitals, and universities in the region to help them establish new management systems and rebuild their healthcare systems. Strengthening the nursing profession—and later, building primary healthcare nursing skills—has always been part of AIHA’s strategy for bolstering healthcare systems in the region.

As a result of these and other efforts, the value of primary care is now recognized in this region as evidenced by the following:

  • Many countries have implemented reform initiatives geared to strengthen primary care and family medicine through their ministries of health.
  • Investments by international donors and lending agencies are helping to rebuild and equip primary care facilities.
  • Schools of the health professions are developing curricula to train a new generation of physicians and nurses specializing in family medicine while seeking solutions to the daunting task of retraining tens of thousands of specialists to meet primary care needs.
Helpful Resources
Overview of AIHA's Primary Healthcare Partnership Program
 
AIHA Primary Healthcare partnerships were one of the vehicles of these reforms. To read an overview of AIHA’s Primary Healthcare Program, click here.

Continue reading about AIHA's Primary Healthcare Nursing program.



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