Introduction Health reform in Federation of BiH (FBiH) is based on strengthening primary health care through development of family medicine. As the reform implementation is a long-lasting process, there are family and general medicine teams still operating simultaneously in Federation of BiH. Goal: Getting insight into the implementation of the Primary Health Care Strategy, with an emphasis on family medicine. Methodology: The data are obtained through research conducted in all health centers in Federation of BiH and are only related to the public health sector in 2006. The research tool was a specially created form for collection of quantitative data from family and general medicine departments. The data are related to the network, employed workers (number, age and sex structure of the employed, level of education, profile, specialties) and services. Results: Research data have shown that out of 79 health centers in FBiH, family medicine has been fully implemented in 11 (14%), and in varied scope in additional 47 health centers (59%), within which general medicine departments function in parallel. For every 10000 inhabitants, there are 1.9 doctors and 3.2 nurses working in family medicine, and 1.1 doctors and 2.2 health technicians in general medicine, which indicates strengthening of family medicine, with evident differences between cantons. Only 2% of family medicine specialists and 3% of general medicine specialists are less than 30 years old, while 4% of family medicine specialists and 29% of general medicine specialists older than 55 years. Over two thirds of all the employed are women. A varied workload of family doctors and general practitioners is evident among cantons. Conclusion: Recorded differences among cantons in family and general medicine indicators are caused by different rates of implementation of reform changes which is influenced by many factors.
Key words: primary health care reform, family medicine, general medicine
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