Proposal to Optimize the Care Model for People with Chronic Diseases and Multimorbidity in Uruguay

The importance of Chronic Disease (CD) in Uruguay has been widely analyzed for many years and in multiple studies and reports 1, 2, 3. Its impact on mortality and its high cost of care was decisive in creating various health promotion and primary and secondary prevention strategies, whose impact has begun to be perceived in the change in trends in some specific areas, such as cardiovascular diseases. However, beyond measures to include specific programs and benefits for CD care and general organization guidelines for health services to satisfy the spontaneous demand generated by CD, there have not been many review initiatives of the care models for CD, especially about the multimorbidity problem, except for the development by the Ministry of Public Health (MPH) of the “Guide to Frailty in Older Adults: Practical Criteria and Research Instruments in The First Level of Care”, an aspect of great clinical relevance about both CD and multimorbidity for human resources and providers of the National Integrated Health System (NIHS). This document presents the work carried out in Uruguay, which culminates with the proposal of the Comprehensive Model of Care for Multimorbidity and includes the study’s results. As such, the authors present the general and specific objectives, the methodology for each of the proposed phases, the results and main contributions to the country and the region, and finally, future projections or possibilities.