Performance Management Of Primary Health Care Centres (PHCCs) For Providing Comprehensive Health Care Service To The Elderly In Saudi Arabia

Care for the elderly has always drawn the attention of policy makers in all countries and Saudi Arabia is not an exception in this regards. While there are budgetary allocations for the health care of the elderly, there is a need to understand whether the concerns of the Primary Health Care Centers are addressed. The elderly, which is established by some experts as "Risk Group" need special attention in the quality and dispensing method of health services provided to them. It is remarkable that this age group (the elderly) and other groups tend to receive health services in the advanced health facilities (specialized hospitals) or in the second row of health services (public hospitals). They rarely go to the services of the first row (primary health care centers), although in practice they do not need more than services of primary health care centers, which causes wasting of more health resources at the time the countries are suffering from high cost of health services. The present study is focusing on identifying the factors for providing comprehensive service to the elderly in PHCCs in the Assir region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and to determine the most influencing factors for providing comprehensive service to the elderly at primary health care centres there. Hypotheses are also framed to cross check the importance of the factors identified. Data are collected from physicians and medical directors working in PHCCs in the Assir Region or KSA. Statistical tests like chronbach’s alpha, KMO Bartletts test, Factor Analysis, Cross tabs and Chi-Square tests are conducted using SPSS 21.0 to identify the influencing factors and to test the hypotheses. Results are discussed and suggestions are given to the policy makers to improve the performance of the PHCCs in the Assir Region of KSA.