Background Paper: Health needs assessment in general practice: the Cretan approach

A comprehensive practice-based and public health-based approach to needs assessment has been established during the last years in primary healthcare (PHC) in Crete, Greece. This article describes the developments and achievements in health monitoring in PHC in Crete. An attempt is made to discuss the methodology used by the Cretan Health Centres for assessment of needs and outcomes together with results. General information sources including continuous morbidity or mortality data recording, and data derived from community-oriented programmes were used in this assessment and the process is presented here. This Greek approach seems to be effective in helping GPs and PHC staff to set priorities and plan primary healthcare services, while a broader discussion over the role of the Greek and Mediterranean context remains.