Progress in Hungarian Primary Care

Hungarian Residents Organisation points out rising success of the GP cluster program in which they are deeply involved. Within the last 1, 5 years around 50% of the intervention area population did participate in the new health status assessment.

Hungarian Residents Organisation points out rising success of the GP cluster program in which they are deeply involved. Within the last 1, 5 years around 50% of the intervention area population did participate in the new health status assessment. Under the Swiss-Hungarian Cooperation Programme, the Public Health Focused Model Programme for Primary Care Development was launched in 2012 in accordance with the health policy concept of the Semmelweis Plan. One of the basic goals was to improve health services provide by GPs and other professionals in disadvantaged regions. Therefore four so called GP clusters were implemented, all of them in regions were access to health and prevention services was limited for the population. The basic principle of the clusters is to “establishes a real connection between the GPs and their colleagues…” which “… improves the establishment of care procedures”, stated by Dr. János Szabó, Head of one of the newly created GP clusters. Core element of the new primary care system is the health assessment of the intervention area population to determinate the health status of the individual.

This “… expands primary care towards public health care” according to Prof. Dr. Róza Ádány, Head of the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Debrecen. “Following a health status assessment, depending on the risk status of individuals health promotion and disease prevention services are provided by the primary care teams in the framework of community programmes, lifestyle counselling and rehabilitation services.” Since the launch of the program in 2012 around 50% of the population did participate in the health status assessment, which already provides a great overview of the services needed in the areas in future. Since the beginning Hungarian Junior Doctors were strongly involve in the project. Magor Papp, former President of the Hungarian Resident Doctors Association (HRDA) and now General Practitioner, is the chief professional leader of the program. Gergely Fürjes, national EJD Delegate of the HRDA works as his deputy.

Both as well as the association welcome the new GP cluster system. It improves the professional interplay and has therefore many benefits as e.g. better patient management and safety. According to Gergely Fúrjes it would be desirable that the GP clusters serve also as one of the training sites of future General Practitioners. But to reach this goal further efforts especially regarding logistics, funding and payment must be done. In his latest site-visit in Hungary EJD President Carsten Mohrhardt welcomed the involvement of the HRDA in the development of the new primary care programme: “It shows that our generation is taking responsibility of the health care systems of the future and wants to be directly involved”. According to the EJD President this programme will be one of the examples of “good practice” to be presented on an upcoming GP workshop, hosted by EJD. The access of the population to sufficient and well organised primary care will be one of the most important topics in future. As Junior Doctors will be the ones providing this services soon they must be involved in their development.