Role of Primary Care Physician in COVID-19 Response: A Review

Abstract

All healthcare providers have had to adapt and be flexible in order to respond to COVID-19. Nonetheless, the emphasis, particularly at the start of the outbreak, was on the impact and response of secondary and tertiary care. The primary care sector's responsibilities in the response focused on how it could help secondary and tertiary care centers respond. A small percentage of current research and evidence focuses on health services implications or applied public health approaches, with even fewer on the role of primary care and family medicine providers. So, while our scientific understanding of the virus and its subsequent clinical consequences has grown exponentially, information about primary care responses to COVID-19 in a variety of settings, as well as the interaction with patient perspectives and priorities, and broader public health responsibilities, remains significantly hazier.