Organization of Primary Health Care in pandemics: a rapid systematic review of the literature in times of COVID-19

The world is experiencing one of the greatest public health emergencies in history with the global spread of COVID-19. Health systems, including Primary Health Care (PHC) services, are pillars of pandemic coping strategies, and there are important gaps in the literature on the best ways to organize PHC in health crisis scenarios such as the one currently experienced. Given the urgency of responses, we performed a rapid systematic literature review on MEDLINE (via PubMed), EMBASE and LILACS (via VHL), in order to analyze empirical studies on the effectiveness of PHC organization strategies in the context of epidemics to improve access and reduce morbidity and mortality. We selected seven articles, which studied the responses to different epidemics in different parts of the world. In terms of access, the studies suggest positive results with the adoption of adjustments of work processes of the teams and the structure of the services, combined with diversification of actions (including call center), adequate provision of inputs and personal protective equipment, adequate action plans and communication strategies, and effective integration with public health services and other levels of care. No study analyzed population morbidity and mortality. The included studies suggest also that community-oriented PHC is more effective in crisis scenarios, indicating the necessity of strengthening of the Family Health Strategy in the Brazilian context.