[Organization of Norwegian out-of-hours primary health care services].
BACKGROUND
The organization of out-of-hours primary health care services in Norway is currently changing from municipal-based to larger inter-municipal co-operations with regular employees and improved competence. The Norwegian Medical Association and others have encouraged the establishment of larger out-of-hours primary health care units that include all municipalities and regular GPs and serve the entire population. More data are needed to study the situation for out-of-hours services in Norway.


METHODS
The National Centre for Emergency Primary Health Care sent questionnaires to all 433 municipalities in Norway the autumn of 2005 to study how the out-of-hours primary health services are organized.


RESULTS
Out-of-hours primary health services is an inter-municipality endeavour in two-thirds of Norwegian municipalities and one third of the remaining municipalities have plans to start such co-operation. Regular GPs participate in out-of-hours services to a varying degree. In half of the municipalities all regular GPs participate in out-of-hours duty. Participation decreases with increasing numbers of inhabitants and regular GPs in the municalities. We found a distinct variation in the number of phone calls per inhabitant to municipal out-of-hours services. Due to geographical factors, there are also variations in patient transport time and availability of ambulances to the out-of-hours offices.


CONCLUSIONS
We observed distinct variations in the organization of the out-of-hours emergency primary health services in Norway. Some of these differences are due to differences in population density and geographical factors.
Nieber
Tobias
T
Nasjonalt kompetansesenter for legevaktmedisin, Kalfarveien 31, 5018 Bergen. tobias.nieber@isf.uib.no
Hansen
Elisabeth Holm
EH
Bondevik
Gunnar Tschudi
GT
Hunskår
Steinar
S
Blinkenberg
Jesper
J
Thesen
Janecke
J
Zakariassen
Erik
E
D039602:After-Hours Care / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005194:Family Practice / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D009664:Norway; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D000078329:Workforce