Biography
Alexandre Favero Bulgarelli has his expertise in evaluation and assessment of Primary Health Services in development of Public Health Systems. Currently, he is a Public Health Professor at Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
Abstract
Statement of the Problem: The Brazilian awareness and investments to the control of tuberculosis (TB) are associated with subjects like infectious diseases control programs, health promotion and construction of public policies regarding primary health assistance by means of the Unifi ed Health System (Portuguese Acronym is SUS). Somehow, Primary Health Care (PHC) contains the infrastructural and professional resources to carry out diagnosis and treatment of TB. Primary health care has good operational indicators regarding the control and management of TB in Brazil. Aim: Th e purpose of this study was to analyze physical infrastructure resources of primary health care centers at SUS regarding the control of TB in Brazil. Methodology & Th eoretical Orientation: It is a cross-sectional study based on data collected from 38812 primary health care centers in all Brazilian territory. All the health centers were visited by a group of researchers between 2011-2013. Th e researchers developed interviews with the health centers managers and checked for all infrastructure resources. Dependent variable were described by the presence and availability of the following infrastructure items: nursing consultation; vaccination facility room; air circulation; refrigerator; individual protective equipment; plastic jar to sputum; tuberculosis notifi cation form and BCG-ID vaccine. Th e covariables were related to: type of primary health center, week days of attendance, shift s of attendance, indoor services signaling and nursing consultation room with privacy. Poisson regression with robust variance was used to calculate prevalence ratio, with intervals of confi dence of 95%. Results: Of 38812 primary health care centers evaluated, only 1628 (4.18%) presented a positive result in all assessed infrastructure items, which drew up the study outcome. Among all types of centers, Primary Health Centers were associated with the highest quality in infrastructure for tuberculosis, in all Brazilian macro regions. Th e centers with larger shift s of attendance, as well as those that presented a list of off ered services and nursing consulting room, also presented highest quality. Conclusions: Th e present study points that improvements should be done regarding infrastructure resources to reach a satisfactory tuberculosis control nationwide. Public health policies should support these improvements to infectious diseases control within primary health care in Brazil.
Biography
Muna Habib Dawood Al Lawati , working as a head of Quality and Safety for primary health care at Directorate general for Muscat Region, Ministry of Health. Currently pursuing her PHD in patient safety at the University of Sydney, Australia.
Abstract
Background: Patient safety is a universal issue which can affect countries at each stage of health system development. Research regarding patients’ safety in primary care concluded that millions of patients globally suffer disabilities, injuries or death annually due to unsafe medical practice. This has led to the wider recognition of the issue, incorporating of strategic plans in health care organizations and more widespread research in this field. Little has been published about patients’ safety in primary care from the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries (GCC) including Oman Aims: The aim of this project is to assess the understanding of primary health care staff regarding safety culture and their awareness of safety measures that should be followed during encounters with the patients. Methods: The study is a cross-sectional survey which assessed the perceptions of patient safety culture among health care professionals working in primary health care in Muscat, Oman, using an existing questionnaire known as Hospital Survey of Patient Safety Culture tool (HSOPSC). The systematic review which was conducted at an earlier identified that this tool was used in many cross cultural samples such as Turkey, Iran and Kuwait to assess safety culture, the same tool has been used to assess the safety culture in the Omani hospitals and it had been used in Kuwait which is one of the GCC countries, with a similar primary health care setting as Oman. By using this tool we will also be able to compare the patient safety culture in Oman with other countries. The survey was conducted in primary health care centers in Muscat, the capital of Oman. The sample included 22 health centers out of 28 health centers because they had services which includes general practice, nursing care and pharmacy these services are functional 7 times a week in addition to services such as laboratory, X ray services and dentistry care provided 5 days a week excluding weekends. The target population were all full time frontline health care professionals working in primary care in Muscat region. (Doctors, nurses, pharmacist, radiologist, laboratory technicians). A simple random sampling scheme was used in each primary health care center to select 10% of the outlined staff in each category. Hence, the total number of 207 participated in the survey. Preliminary results one hundred and eighty one (91%) of the participants responded in the study which included 42 Doctors (95%), 56 nurses (89%), 19 pharmacists (86%), 22 radiographer (100%), 22 laboratory technicians (100%) and 20 dentist (90%). Conclusion The results of this survey will inform policies and process for improving patient safety in primary care in Oman. In addition the results will enable comparisons with in other Eastern Mediterranean Countries which have used the same tool such as Iran, Kuwait, and Turkey. The study will help to form a possible template for building of a safety culture in primary health care in the context of a rapid economic development.