Evaluation of Primary Health Care Strategies (PHC) in the Health System of the Islamic Republic of Iran:A Research Based on Strategic Control

At the end of the Almaty Conference,primary health care(PHC)was introduced as a basic approach in the field of health and the key to achieve the goals of "health for all", and member states agreed to formulate their health system strategies on that basis.In the health system of the Islamic Republic of Iran,various strategies were adopted in this field, including the establishment of health centers in rural areas and their development plans,the employment of health workers to activate services in urban centers,and family medicine plan.The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the strategies adopted to expand primary health care services in the health system of the Islamic Republic of Iran.In this regard, using the strategic control methods called"adapted balanced scorecard(BSC)to evaluate PHC strategies",the initial conceptual framework was extracted and presented to the experts. Finally, these strategies were evaluated by thematic analysis method.In order to achieve the research purpose, five different dimensions including macro-orientation,stakeholder,financial, growth and learning, and internal processes perspectives were evaluated as comprehensive themes in the thematic network. Although the centrality of PHCservices in the system is one of the strategic levers of these services, but the adopted strategies have led to the marginalization of these services in service delivery of the health system; therefore, they are evaluated as weak in terms of macro-orientation.The important point is that the weakness of PHC strategies in this component also affects other components.The conclusion is that despite the proven importance ofPHCservices in the world, unfortunately,the strategies for expanding primary health care in the IslamicRepublic of Iran according to core values of these services are evaluated as extremely weak and these services are considered as a forgotten necessity of the health system.