Reforming primary care in Australia: A narrative review of the evidence from five comparator countries

Abstract

The need for reform of primary care is driven by health system inequity, inefficiency, sub-optimal quality of care and outcomes. In Australia, there has been no systematic analysis of the relevance and applicability of international reforms of differing models of primary care delivery and the implications for addressing these issues in the local context. We used a narrative review and synthesis approach to analyse evidence from four English-speaking comparator countries (New Zealand, Canada, United Kingdom, United States of America) and one European country (Netherlands). In this review the term "primary care" refers to the system of health care workers (predominantly general practice, nursi..