Table 1.

Select examples of primary care and public health coordination during COVID-19

Activity	Select country examples
PHC facility-based testing and triage	Health centres in Greece's capital region were designated for testing, triaging and treating COVID-19 patients. Similarly most testing and provision of medical advice in Belarus, Iceland and Spain were at PHC-led health centres. In Belarus PHC providers (GPs) led testing alongside physicians at designated hospitals. While some centres created separate routes within PHC provider locations that meant suspected cases did not meet with non-COVID related essential services (e.g. Spain), the advice to PHC providers in the Netherlands and Iceland was to operate separate office hours within the same sites for patients with respiratory complaints or COVID symptoms, respectively.
Telephone-based triage for COVID-19 diagnosis	Triage telephone lines were staffed by public PHC centre teams (e.g. Malta) or staffed by GPs in Hungary and Ireland. More specifically, in Hungary, PHC providers undertook telephone-based health checks and referred suspected cases to the National Emergency Ambulance Service who took samples and organised lab testing.
COVID-19 case-tracing	Where tracing capacity was limited, public health authorities in the Czech Republic were assisted by police investigators, civil servants and private sector call centre operators. In Albania, PHC providers supported public health surveillance teams in case detection and contact tracing. Regional laboratories in Ukraine organized contact tracing and monitoring with the involvement of PHC workers virtually, by telephone or in-person visits.
Home-based monitoring	PHC providers in Albania and GPs and the Bulgarian Regional Health Inspectorate provided consultations and medical surveillance during quarantine – providing surveillance and home treatment of confirmed cases and for referring patients to a hospital if necessary and followed-up post discharge. Following confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis, mobile teams in Kyrgyzstan, Montenegro and San Marino followed-up with people under home-quarantine. A telemedicine centre was used to support PHC outpatient/home visits for suspected COVID-19 cases and follow up on cases not needing hospitalization (Moscow, Russia).
Delivering vaccines against COVID-19	The Croatian Institute of Public Health has been distributing COVID-19 vaccines its local sites where family doctors coordinate vaccination clinics with other clinicians. In Israel a network of community-based health care providers, namely nurses, have been supporting the delivery of vaccinations. In Finland, PHC physicians plan and implement vaccination clinics, and health professionals including physicians, nurses, public health nurses and midwives who have received adequate vaccination training, administer jabs.

Source: HSRM (last accessed: March 2021)

Note: examples in table are not exhaustive but represent a selection of varied ways in which primary care and public health coordinated their efforts.