ReportWatch: Building a 21st Century Primary Health Care System - Australia's First National Primary Health Care Strategy

The National Primary Health Care Strategy is a national road map to guide future primary health care policy and planning in Australia. It sets out essential building blocks and key priority areas that will provide the foundation for an integrated high performing primary health care system fit for the future.

The five key building blocks are:

1. regional integration
2. information and technology, including eHealth
3. skilled workforce
4. infrastructure
5. financing and system performance.

Drawing from these are four key priority areas for change:

1. improving access and reducing inequity
2. better management of chronic conditions
3. increasing the focus on prevention
4. improving quality, safety, performance and accountability.

So where does research and evaluation fit into this Strategy? As stated on page 34 “Underpinning quality and safety, and primary health care policy more broadly, the Australian Government will maintain its commitment to primary health care research, both through funding for research capacity, and through the use of research-based evidence to inform policy and practice.”

This is a long awaited Strategy. Whether we are researchers, practitioners or policy makers, we should all use the Strategy to guide primary health care policy and planning.

The full report is available from <www.yourhealth.gov.au/>