Anshul Govila
Universal Hospitals, UAE
Title: Improving access and quality of primary care: Case study of a private provider in the UAE
Biography
Biography: Anshul Govila
Abstract
Primary Care Physicians have always been the funnel through which all patients reach to the tertiary care facilities. This is a more so established dictum in old established healthcare networks like the NHS, the US, continental Europe, Canada and Australia. This model has always seen that strong trained General Practioners cognizably take care of a patient population of 1500-2000. In the process they not only deal with emergent conditions the patients go through but run several risk assessment clinics and several outreach programs for disease prevention. In the geographies mentioned above Practioners are incentivized through schemes to prevent smoking, ask patients to loose weight, maintain compliance to medications and so much so that they are involved in the social wellbeing of the family. The primary care network in the UAE is also being shaped on similar lines but a majority of the expat population cannot avail of this. This population has its own peculiarities, it is underinsured, migratory and is more or less demographically in the middle age bracket with children. Traditionally it has not had any geriatric patients or severely medically compromised patients in its mix. Creating facilities which will cater to this population in an evidence based manner has always been a challenge. To incorporate this in to the bigger plan of a growing hospital is another challenge. The challenges primarily are deployment of human resource, keeping the physicians engaged and seeing that they are not incentivized to over prescribe or over investigate. The model suggested in the presentation is a model we follow to get accountable care and will be detailed in the presentation.