A new drive for primary care in Europe : rethinking the assessment tools and methodologies : report of the expert group on health systems performance assessment

Strong primary healthcare is the foundation of a health system that is effective, efficient and responsive to patients' needs. Although not enough appreciated, primary care can handle most of today's chronic conditions without a specialist referral and produce benefits for the overall healthcare systems. Well performing primary care means less healthcare utilization overall and more focus on quality and achievement of optimal health outcomes. This report will hopefully convince policy makers not to settle for status quo, but to build new capacity for growth aligning every actor of primary care to move forward towards new ways of doing things with the benefit for patients.