Primary care refers to general medical care. Primary care practitioners, who include doctors, nurses and physician assistants, are the first medical professionals you visit when you are ill or when you need a check-up. In the United States, primary health care addresses about 85 percent of health problems.
Types of Practitioners
Primary care clinicians include pediatricians, family medicine physicians and internal medicine physicians, known as internists. Sometimes, gynecologists and obstetricians provide primary care because many women visit their gynecologists annually and have no other primary doctor. Pediatricians care for children up to the age of 18. Internists care for adults and often deal with patients with chronic diseases and patients with multiple illnesses. Family medicine doctors care for both children and adults. All types of primary care clinicians refer patients to specialists when needed.
Scope of Care
Primary care clinicians have a large scope of practice: They see patients of all ages and in all states of health. Often, when you visit a primary care doctor, you are not sure what your illness is, so the clinicians consider you "undifferentiated" and they must work to figure out what your condition is. Other times, primary care clinicians take care of patients with chronic diseases such as hypertension (high blood pressure), diabetes and asthma. The focus of primary care includes diagnosing and treating illnesses as well as disease prevention, patient education and maintaining health. Primary care emphasizes continuity of care, so that when you go into the hospital or see a specialist, your primary care physician should keep track of the various tests and medications other providers prescribe to you.
History
In 1978, a meeting of the World Health Organization established primary health care by calling for "health for all" in a document called the Alma-Ata Declaration. The idea of primary health care goes back to the 19th century, when pathologist Rudolf Virchow wrote that improvement in living conditions and social justice would help improve health among the population just as much as improvements in science. In 1970, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services established the National Health Service Corps, which encourages health care workers to choose primary health care fields by providing financial incentives.
Goals
The philosophy of primary health care involves the importance of accessibility and affordability. As outlined in the Alma-Ata Declaration, primary care aims to be a site of scientifically sound medical care provided to an entire community. Primary health care clinicians deliver health education, promotion and disease prevention to benefit all members of a community. For example, primary health care practitioners give out vaccinations.
Benefits
According to an article in Archives of Family Medicine, a shortage of primary care availability exists in the United States, and if you live in an area where primary health care is accessible, you are more likely to avoid going to the hospital unnecessarily. Communities in which primary care is readily available have better health outcomes. An article in the International Journal of Health Services found that the more primary care physicians work in an area, the lower that area's incidence of heart disease, cancer and stroke.
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