The effect of commissioning on Portuguese Primary Health Care units' performance: A four-year national analysis.

Background: Portugal underwent a paradigmatic Primary Health Care (PHC) reform in 2005. The reform implemented better health information systems, goal-oriented management, pay-for-performance schemes, functional autonomy for the front-line units, and the general adoption of commissioning processes. Since the implementation of the reform, the same set of indicators have been monitored nationally every year.

Diagnostic and laboratory test ordering in Northern Portuguese Primary Health Care: a cross-sectional study.

Objectives: To characterise the test ordering pattern in Northern Portugal and to investigate the influence of context-related factors, analysing the test ordered at the level of geographical groups of family physicians and at the level of different healthcare organisations.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Northern Primary Health Care, Portugal.