الفهرس 
Introduction& rationaleOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Primary health care plays a central role in health care systems worldwide. It can offer families cost-effective services close to home, eliminating costly trips to specialists and hospitals. In developing countries, community health centers usually offer a broad range of services, including prenatal care, immunizations, treatment of childhood illnesses, treatment of malaria and other common infectious diseases, and other basic medical care.
All too often, however, the coverage and effectiveness of primary care services delivered to children in the family medicine and primary health care systems are limited by insufficient resources and staff, erratic drug supplies, and faulty equipment.
Governments increasingly recognize that adequate delivery of primary care services to children in primary health care centers is fundamental to the effective functioning of health systems, to keeping children’s families healthy, and to achieving national health goals.
The Scope of Primary Health Care Primary provides immediate and often continuing care for children, or families. It is often their first experience with the formal healthcare system. In developing countries, public health posts and health centers often provide this care through family physicians , nurses and mid-level health workers. Ideally, doctors are available for support, training, and referrals.
Primary health care serves several unique and essential purposes:
• These services are usually located in communities, making them the first point of contact with the health system for many children;
• The services can handle a wide range of basic health conditions;
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• Patients are followed over time by the same primary care providers;
• The services are coordinated with higher levels of the health system that can provide more specialized care when needed; and
• These services can reach out to marginalized and underserved children that might not otherwise seek or receive health care.
Since the mid-1990s, the international health community has agreed that a minimum package of essential health services should be available at the primary care level. These services typically include maternity care, family planning, childhood immunizations, treatment of common childhood illnesses, and prevention and treatment of malaria, tuberculosis, and other common illnesses. The package of care adopted in any particular country is ideally based on cost-effectiveness analysis, the disease burden, and the socioeconomic and cultural context.
Primary care services also extend care to communities and vulnerable groups. Outreach services may focus on prevention, such as providing immunizations or vitamin A, or community-wide health promotion of child nutrition and other topics. Increasingly, the services are also tapped to provide home-based care for such chronic conditions as tuberculosis.
Through referrals, primary care facilities also give children access to higher levels of care, particularly at the district level. Because primary health care acts as a link between community health care and more specialized care at other levels, it requires management teams that can plan and implement the most effective combinations of services that address local health conditions and risk factors.
Different types of indicators and tools have been developed to measure the function of