A policy brief on improving the finance of family physician program: An experience from urban areas of Iran

Fardid, Mozhgan; Jafari, Mehdi; Vosoogh-Moghaddam, Abbas

doi:10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_997_19

Cited by 1 publication

(4 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…In the next stage, 165 articles were evaluated based on their full texts, and 38 articles were selected as nal included studies (Fig. 1) [7,9,15,24,29,. Table 1 demonstrates the detailed characteristics of the included studies.…”

Section: Scoping Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Iran, the role of the MoHME has indeed shifted from policymaking and supervision to nancing and providing healthcare services, which has made it unable to ful ll its governance and leadership roles in a desirable manner [70,71]. Therefore, it is necessary for the MoHME to return to its main functions, such as policymaking and supervision, in order to provide the necessary platform to guide reform programs, including UFPP [29,39].…”

Section: Organizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, focusing on treatment-oriented courses in the educational system has made it di cult for practitioners to understand health-oriented problems [54]. Thus, many studies have suggested that we should train appropriate practitioners and therapists for community-oriented programs such as family physicians by making amendments to educational curricula [29,36,61]. In addition, ad hoc training and constant educational courses should be considered seriously in order to update knowledge and skills [23].…”

Section: Organizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, private-sector specialists are the most powerful stakeholders in health-care providers and do not advocate for FPP-provided preventive services. Hence, there is a gap between FPP and what is actually achieved by the community after its implementation [16, [27][28][29]. The expansion of this program to other cities depends on the results of the pilot implementation of UFPP in Fars and Mazandaran provinces [24].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

The challenges of urban family physician program over the past decade in Iran: A scoping review and qualitative study with policy-makers

Lankarani

Honarvar

Shahabi

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Introduction: Despite all the advantages of urban family physician program (UFPP), there is still a gap between UFPP and what is actually achieved by the community after its implementation in Iran. In response, this study attempted to review published studies related to the barriers to the implementation of the UFPP in Iran as well as potential solutions to improve it. Further, a qualitative study was conducted to learn the perspectives of experts at the national level and in the Fars province in order to better understand the program's challenges. Methods This study was conducted in two phases. First, a scoping review was done, aiming to identify the common barriers and potential solutions to implementing UFPP in Iran. Second, a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews was conducted to investigate the views of decision- and policy-makers regarding barriers to and solutions for implementing the UFPP in the Fars province over the last decade. The findings were classified using the five control knobs framework (Organization, financing, payment, regulation, and behavior). Results The most common barriers to UFPP were: 1) organization (ununited stewardship function of the Ministry of Health, weak management and planning, inadequate training of human resources, and a weak referral system); 2) financing (fragmented insurance funds, insufficient financial resources, and instability of financial resources); 3) payment (inappropriate payment mechanisms and delay in payments); 4) regulation (cumbersome laws and unclear laws); and 5) behavior (cultural problems and conflict of interests). On the other hand, several solutions were identified to improve the implementation of UFPP, including: enhancing the role of government; improving the referral system; providing comprehensive training for UFPP providers; considering sustainable financial resources; moving towards mixed-payment mechanisms; employing appropriate legal and regulatory frameworks; enhancing community awareness; and elevating incentive mechanisms. Conclusion Our research found that, despite the UFPP having been in place for a decade in Iran, there are still significant challenges in all five components. Therefore, the promotion of this program requires solving the existing implementation challenges in order to achieve the predetermined goals. The ideas in this study can be used to improve the current program in Fars Province and bring it to other cities in Iran.

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Section: Scoping Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Organizationmentioning

confidence: 99%