In their recent paper, Jean Adams and Martin White1 make the observation that electoral wards in north-east England with low aggregate measures of education, employment or income generally have shorter straight-line distances to a general practice. They conclude that ‘more deprived areas tend to be better served by health services in terms of geographical proximity to general practices’ (p. 81)...

The rise of pharmaceutical costs is a significant burden to overall health care expenditure. The Croatian Health Insurance Fund (CHIF) in attempts of its containment, use administrative measures directed toward the two greatest generators: pharmaceutical industry, through negotiating prices and periodic revisions of basic and suplemental drug lists, and primary care physicians, through limits i...

This is the second edition of the book Skin Disease: Diagnosis and Treatment, edited by Thomas P. Habif, Adjunct Professor of Medicine (Dermatology) at Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH, USA. The first edition appeared in 2001. In the preface, the editors stress that changes in health care delivery require an increasing level of sophistication among primary care providers in all medical dis...

Eastern Europe’s medical systems are changing in an attempt to match increasing health demands with limited resources. New methods of delivery and financing are being introduced, and the World Health Organization’s regional office for Europe has been active in helping develop primary health care. We describe the evolution of primary care in Kosovo and the lessons for other post-communist countr...

This paper analyses the paradigm shift from the disease to the person with the disease against the background of the changes of health systems toward primary health care. The structural changes from hospital to the community and the specialist to the generalist approach are essential to enable this different approach. As a consequence, any assessment of health status, risks, and needs starts wi...

the role of education in improving quality of life of patients with chronic renal failure has been emphasized by many studies. this survey was performed to assess the effect of a confined program of home-care on the health status of patients who were receiving hemodialysis. in this research, 37 patients afflicted by chronic renal insufficiency were chosen and put into two categories randomly, 1...

No abstract available.

The series of articles in the British Journal of General Practice have provoked some thought, for me, concerning the imminent introduction of Advanced Access to our practice. We were among the practices recruited to the National Primary Care Collaborative (NPCC) first wave. During the last 3 years we have been developing other aspects of our practice. In particular, the infrastructure, which in...

A U.S. family physician educator working in El Salvador, recently returned from the WONCA Fourth Regional Congress of the Ibero American Confederation of Family Medicine, reflects on the state of primary care in Latin America. Progress in primary health care and family medicine is occurring in several countries in the region as many countries are coming to accept that primary care is a systemat...