From U A Coruna-Spain: Ethical and legal issues in the clinical practice of primary health care

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23277000

Front Biosci (Elite Ed). 2013 Jan 1;5:435-45.

Ethical and legal issues in the clinical practice of primary health care .

Maestro FJ, Martinez-Romero M, Vazquez-Naya JM, Pereira J, Pazos A.

Source

Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Computer Science Faculty, University of A Coruna, Campus de Elvina s/n, 15071 A Coruna, Spain.

Abstract

Since it was conceived, the notion of primary care has been a crucial concept in health services. Most health care is provided at this level and primary care clinicians have an essential role, both in terms of disease prevention and disease management. During the last decades, primary health care has evolved from a traditional paternalistic model, in which patients played the role of passive recipient of care, towards a situation in which patients are partners involved in the decision making-process. This new context opened a considerable number of new ethical and legal aspects, which need to be comprehensively analyzed and discussed in order to preserve the quality of primary health care all around the world. This work reviews the most important ethical and legal issues in primary health care. Legislation issues are explained in the context of the Spanish Health Services.