A Regional Health Administration guarantees the population of its region, access to the provision of quality healthcare, adjusting available resources to health needs and ensuring compliance with the National Health Plan in its area of intervention.
The responsibilities of Regional Health Administrations are:
- Carry out the attributions and orientations of the Ministry of Health;
- Coordinate, guide and evaluate the implementation of health policy in each health region, in accordance with global and sectoral policies, with the aim to optimize available resources;
- Cooperate in the preparation of the National Health Plan and monitor its implementation at regional level;
- Develop and promote activities in the field of public health, ensuring its protection and promotion;
- Provide adequate coordination between healthcare providers in order to assure compliance with the referral network.
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Health Centre Groups are health services with administrative autonomy, constituted by several primary care functional units, which integrate one or more health centres. They are decentralized services of the respective Regional Health Administration, under their responsibility, and pursue the main goal of guaranteeing the provision of primary healthcare to the population of a certain geographic area.
Health Centre Groups develop activities regarding health promotion, disease prevention, epidemiological surveillance in health and health research.
In Portugal there are 55 Health Centre Groups.
Health Centre Groups are constituted by the following functional units:
Family Health Unit
A Family Health Unit is a healthcare unit, based on multi-professional teams, consisting of doctors, nurses and administrative staff and can be organized into three development models: A, B and C.
The multi-professional team should enhance the skills and competences of each professional group and contribute to the establishment of a stable interpersonal and professional relationship. USF’s activity is developed with organizational, functional and technical autonomy, integrated into a network with other functional units of the health centre or the local health unit. A Family Health Unit is part of the health centre.
Personalized Healthcare Unit
Personalized Healthcare Unit has an identical structure to the USF and provides personalized care, guaranteeing its accessibility and continuity. The team consists of doctors, nurses and administrative staff.
Community Care Unit
The Community Care Unit provides home-based and community-based healthcare, psychological and social support, especially to the most vulnerable individuals, families and groups, in situation of increased physical or functional risk or dependency, or illness requiring close follow-up. It works in health education, in family support networks and in the implementation of mobile intervention units. The Community Care Unit team consists of nurses, social workers, doctors, psychologists, nutritionists, physiotherapists, speech therapists and other professionals.
Health Centre Groups participate through Community Care Units in the Long-Term Care National Network, incorporating the local coordinating team. It is the Community Care Unit’s responsibility to set up the long-term care team, as provided for in Decree-Law n. 101/2006, of 6th of June.
Public Health Unit
Public Health Units work as a health observatory in the geo-demographic area of the respective Health Centre Group and is responsible for the preparation of information and plans in public health areas, to carry out epidemiological surveillance, to manage intervention programs in the scope of prevention, promotion and protection of the population´s health in general or of specific groups of patients. Public Health Units also collaborate in tasks together with of the Health Authority. The team is comprised of public health physicians, public health or community health nurses and environmental health technicians.
Public Health Unit´s coordinator is responsible to appoint his/her representative in municipal organizations with health responsibilities.
Each Health Centre Group has only one Public Health Unit.
Shared Care Resource Unit
The Shared Care Resource Unit provides consulting and assistance services to the aforementioned functional units and organizes functional links to hospital services. The Shared Care Resource Unit team is comprised of doctors of various specialties, excluding general and family medicine and public health, as well as social workers, psychologists, nutritionists, physiotherapists, oral health technicians and other professionals. Each ACES has only one Shared Care Resource Unit.
Management Support Unit
The Management Support Unit is based on a concentration of non-care services of the Health Centre Group, providing administrative and general support to the Health Centre Group’s executive director, clinical council and functional units.
