Abstract
People living in urban areas are growing; therefore, urban primary medical care is more crucial.
Studying urban primary care systems in various countries will make us learn from best practice in each
country which may be applied to Thai urban medical system. Objectives of this study were to analyze and
compare urban primary care systems among each country. Study design was documentary research about
urban primary care systems in 14 countries including Brazil, Canada, Spain, Cuba, Republic of Korea,
Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, United Kingdom, United States of America, and
Australia. Primary Care Evaluation Tool (PCET) of WHO European Region was used as a framework for
analysis. From this study, countries with gatekeeper system (patients were screened by general practitioners
or family physicians ) had good continuous, collaborative, and coordinate care with appropriate
health care costs. Most of countries which governments spent budget for people’s medical care expenses
had provided general practitioners or family physicians as gatekeepers acting in patients screening. There
was no gatekeeper system in countries which people were responsible for their own medical care expenses
but co-payment system was involved to reduce unnecessary service uses.
