Assesment of access to health care in Family Physician Program by performance criteria of health care continuity and timely access in Gorgan

Background and Objective: Increasing access to health care has been regarded as the main objective of the Iranian Health Care system and development of the rural healthcare network. The family physician plan within this network aimed at increasing access to health care by improvement in performance criteria of the Health Care system in villages and cities under 20,000 population since 2005. In this research, the objective of increasing access to health care within the family physician plan in Gorgan has been assessed using the performance criteria of continuity of and timely access to the health care.



Materials and Methods: First, the indicators for the three main variables of family physician plan, for access to health care, and for performance criteria of continuity of and timely access to health care have been introduced. Then, the relation for regression correlations between the dependent variable of access to health care and the descriptive variables of performance criteria for 17 rural health centers in Gorgan have been presented. The statistical model of regression correlations between the dependent variable of access to health care and the descriptive variables in 2011 and 2012 has been estimated, using a panel data model for the error-correction type relation and E-views8 software.



Results: The estimation of regression correlations showed that a 10 percent increase in the physician-patient relationship and in the recording and following up healthcare services, in the monthly trend, rises access to health care 6.2 and 4.9 percent, respectively. But, 10 percent increase in the indicator of relationship between family physician and specialized healthcare services, because of poor functional performance, increases access to health care only 1.1 percent. Also, it showed that 10 percent increase in rural browsing for the targeted ill group and in referrals of the targeted group increases access to health care 6 and 5.1 percent, respectively. But, 10 percent increase in rural browsing for all the covered, because of poor performance, increases access to health care only 1.4 percent.



Conclusion: This study took the same concepts of objective indicator and function criteria indicators as the other studies on family physician to create quantitative indicators, and then, to describe the model of regression correlations, that indicated the family physician in Gorgan province with acceptable performance could have increased access to health care. But, the effects of family physician performance criteria for the relationship between family physician and specialized healthcare services and for the rural browsing for all were less than expectations.