Analysis of Rural Primary Health Care Excellence Strategies in Iran: A Systematic Approach

One of the challenges of health care system in Iran is the disproportionate level of the health houses compared to the people’s need. As health houses are considered the first line of defense in the realm of health, their excellence is crucially important to achieve acceptable performance. Thus, this study aimed to analyze the excellence strategies of health houses located in Iran rural areas. In this systematic review study, twelve electronic databases and search engines were searched by related keywords to find articles in both Persian and English from 2000 to 2020. CASP checklist was employed to evaluate the quality of these articles which were about primary health care. Out of 558 articles, 28 were selected with related titles, abstracts, and content. The findings of this study revealed that the main strategies of rural health houses’ excellence included improving the quality of care services, information technology, work conditions, the behavior of service providers, community participation, support and motivation, as well as improving governance and leadership strategies with several sub-strategies. Rural health houses’ excellence strategies revitalize and recreate the passivized role and mission of health houses in achieving the goals of primary health care in Iran health care system. Therefore, rational, balanced, scientific, and systematic investment is required not only in one strategy but in all mentioned strategies.