title: Avoidable hospitalizations for ambulatory care sensitive conditions as an indicator of primary health care effectiveness in Argentina.
abstract: Avoidable hospitalizations for ambulatory care sensitive conditions (AH-ACSCs) identify health problems that could be avoided by improving primary health care (PHC). On the basis of hospital discharges from Argentine public sector facilities, an expert panel convened to define a list of AH-ACSCs for children and adults. AH-ACSCs represented less than 30% of hospitalizations. Compared with country averages, poorer districts showed large differences in trends for adults but not for children. Despite that AH-ACSCs have demonstrated empirical validity to evaluate health system performance, its implementation to assess PHC in countries like Argentina, with pluralistic and fragmented health care systems, remains a big challenge.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: Adolfo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rubinstein
authors.forename: Analía
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: López
authors.forename: Joaquín
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Caporale
authors.forename: Pilar
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Valanzasca
authors.forename: Vilma
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Irazola
authors.forename: Fernando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Rubinstein
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D001118:Argentina; D016208:Databases, Factual; D003697:Delphi Technique; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D038801:International Classification of Diseases; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010351:Patient Discharge / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011315:Preventive Medicine; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D055815:Young Adult