Quality Indicators for Chronic Diseases in Primary Care

Abstract

Quality indicators is defined as nominal, ordinal or quantitative measures of health care quality in order to provide effective, safe and human-centered health care. They are the most important tools in monitoring quality. Quality indicators are widely used in many countries, including Türkiye, to evaluate and improve the quality of care in the health system. Quality indicators in primary care in Türkiye started to be implemented in 2017 by the Ministry of Health with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Health Care Quality Indicators Turkey project. According to this project Turkey includes 9 categories. These are Primary Health Care (preventable hospital admissions), Primary Care (prescribing), Acute Care, Mental Health Services, Patient Safety, Patient Experiences, Cancer Care, Infectious Disease Care, Dementia Health Services. The Category of Primary care has seven quality indicators. Although it was introduced in 2017 it is not widely used in primary care. Primary care plays an important role in the promotion of health care. Therefore, using quality indicators will be helpful in this process. Keywords: chronic disease, family physician, quality ındicators, health care