The Organization of Primary Healthcare during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Dear Colleagues,

General practitioners play a crucial role in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic as the first point of contact for possibly infected patients and are responsible for the short- and long-term follow-up care of the majority of COVID patients. Nonetheless, they experience many barriers to fulfilling this role. The PRICOV-19 study investigates how GP practices in 38 countries are organized during COVID-19 to guarantee high-quality care. Additionally, the shift in roles and tasks and the wellbeing of staff members is researched. Finally, PRICOV-19 aims to study the association with practice and healthcare system characteristics. This Special Issue will comprise a collection of articles on the results of PRICOV-19, which is the largest study ever carried out in Europe and the most comprehensive study examining how GP practices function during COVID-19. Its results can significantly contribute to better preparedness of primary healthcare (PHC) systems across Europe for future major outbreaks of infectious diseases. Potential topics include but are not limited to the wellbeing of care providers, division of tasks and roles, limitations to the infrastructure or buildings, infection control, patient safety incidents, video consultations, health inequities and care for vulnerable population groups, patient education responsiveness, and healthcare system pandemic response and PHC organization.

Prof. Dr. Sara Willems
Dr. Andrew D. Pinto 
Guest Editors

Publisher’s Notice

As stated above, the central purpose of this Special Issue is to present research from PRICOV-19 . Given this purpose, the Guest Editors’ contribution to this Special Issue may be greater than outlined in MDPI’s Special Issue guidelines (https://www.mdpi.com/special_issues_guidelines). The Editorial Office and Editor-in-Chief of IJERPH has approved this Topic and MDPI’s standard manuscript editorial processing procedure (https://www.mdpi.com/editorial_process) will be applied to all submissions. As per our standard procedure, Guest Editors are excluded from participating in the editorial process for their submission and/or for submissions from persons with whom a potential conflict of interest may exist. More details on MDPI’s Conflict of Interest policy for reviewers and editors can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/ethics#_bookmark22.

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