A framework for implementation of community-orientated primary care in the Metro Health Services, Cape Town, South Africa

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Abstract

In South Africa, the national policy on re-engineering primary health care (PHC) supports the implementation of ward-based outreach teams with community health workers. In the Western Cape, a community-orientated primary care (COPC) approach has been adopted in provincial goals for 2030 and the key strategies for the improvement of district health services. This approach is expected to improve health and also save costs. A task team was established in the Metropolitan Health Services to develop an implementation framework for COPC. The framework was developed in an iterative process with four learning sites in the metropole over a period of 18 months. The framework consists of 10 inter-related elements: geographic delineation of PHC teams, composition of PHC teams, facility-based and community-based teamwork, partnership of government and non-government organisations, scope of practice, information system, community engagement, stakeholder engagement, training and development of PHC teams, system preparation and change management. This framework was implemented at the four learning sites and is now being taken to scale and further assessed in the metropole.

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Community-orientated primary care: a scoping review of different models, and their effectiveness and feasibility in sub-Saharan Africa

Bob Mash, Sunanda Ray, Akye Essuman … (2019)

Introduction Community-orientated primary care (COPC) is an approach to primary healthcare (PHC) that originated in South Africa and contributed to the formulation of the Declaration of Alma-Ata 40 years ago. Despite this, PHC remains poorly developed in sub-Saharan African countries. There has been a resurgence of interest in strengthening PHC systems in the last few years and identifying key knowledge gaps. COPC has been an effective strategy elsewhere, most notably Brazil. This scoping review investigated COPC in the sub-Saharan African context and looked for evidence of different models, effectiveness and feasibility. Methods Databases were systematically searched using a comprehensive search strategy to identify studies from the last 10 years. A methodological guideline for conducting scoping reviews was followed. A standardised template was used to extract data and compare study characteristics and findings. Studies were grouped into five categories: historical analysis, models, implementation, educational studies and effectiveness. Results A total of 1997 publications were identified and 39 included in the review. Most publications were from the last 5 years (n = 32), research (n = 27), from South Africa (n = 27), focused on implementation (n = 25) and involving case studies (n = 9), programme evaluation (n = 6) or qualitative methods (n = 10). Nine principles of COPC were identified from different models. Factors related to the implementation of COPC were identified in terms of governance, finances, community health workers, primary care facilities, community participation, health information and training. There was very little evidence of effectiveness of COPC. Conclusions There is a need for further research to describe models of COPC in Africa, investigate the appropriate skills mix to integrate public health and primary care in these models, evaluate the effectiveness of COPC and whether it is included in training of healthcare workers and government policy.

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Community-oriented primary care: new relevance in a changing world.

Leon Epstein, Fitzhugh Mullan (2002)

Since its inception in rural, pre-apartheid South Africa, community-oriented primary care (COPC) has intrigued and informed public health and primary care leaders worldwide. COPC has influenced such programs as the US community health center movement, the general practice movement in the United Kingdom, and recent reforms in the public health system of South Africa. We provide a global overview of COPC, tracing its conceptual roots, reviewing its many manifestations, and exploring its future prospects as an organizational paradigm for the democratic organization of community health services. We examine the pitfalls and paradoxes of COPC and suggest its future utility. COPC has important values and methods to offer disparate but powerful movements in public health worldwide.

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

Tessa S Marcus, Jannie F Hugo, Champak Jinabhai (2017)

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.