Family medicine and primary care: Exigency to address in tertiary care institutions.

Abstract

Family medicine and primary care are an urgent need to address at tertiary care institutions to envision with firming of primary care in the country. In reference to the growing burden of non-communicable diseases, triggering an alarming situation to public health, it may be alleviated by addressing primary care only. Primary healthcare has consistently played a crucial and unavoidable role in the public health system, but it is frequently presented as a standalone entity. Therefore, there is an immediate necessity to reintegrate primary care into the broader framework of the public healthcare system. Strategic preventive action, intervention, and coordination through person-centric care is the essential tool of family medicine, which paves the way for primary care leadership in public health. The linkage between family medicine and public health has to be reinforced at a tertiary care institution for wider acceptability of the concept. Reduction in morbidity and mortality from various spectrums of disease at the primary stage, cost-effective health care amenable to decreasing the huge burden at tertiary care institutions, which directly affect the quality of health care in India.