Table 1 Strategies to improve primary health care

Leadership

 Social capital distributive leadership

Canada [81]

 Decentralized governance

European countries [82]

 Effective technical supervision

Saudi Arabia [29]

 Rural community-/family-/school-based healthcare services [83]

Multicounty [83]

 Outreach services

Brazil and multicountry [14, 84]

 Institutions near to the community

Poland [71, 85], Brazil [86], Niger [87], USA [3], Belgium [88], multicountry [89]

 Working with traditional healers

Multicountry [83]

 Participatory decision-making processes

South Africa [90]

 Contracting with non-governmental partners

Brazil [91] and Bangladesh [92]

 Appropriate health care settings

Albania [30]

Health Financing

 Financial sustainability

Estonia [93]

 Diagonal investment

Ethiopia [94]

Health workforce

 Increasing number of well-trained health workers

Estonia [93], multicountry and Brazil [14, 86]

 Gender-concordant providers

Multicountry [14]

 Train community members/community engagement

Canada [95,96,97], Spain [98, 99], Australia [100] and South Africa [101]

 Skill-mix

South Korea) [57]

 Well-functioning Teamwork

Spain [102] and South Africa [103]

Service delivery

 After-hours services

UK [104], high-income countries [14], Canada [95, 105]

 A strong referral system

Brazil [106]

 Scheduling Model’ of care

Brazil [107]

 Tools and indicators

Australia and USA [108, 109] and Spain [98, 99]

Health technology

 Telemedicine

Brazil [110]

Client and physician factor

 Better physician’s and patients’ perception

USA [37, 111, 112]

 Patient trust of health care

Uganda [38]