The Experience of Healthcare Service Stratification in Controlling COVID-19 in Iran

A new coronavirus, called COVID-19, caused the outbreak of pneumonia from Wuhan, China, to the whole country in late 2019, affecting other countries of the world, one after another. COVID-19 has posed great health threats to public health around the world. The COVID-19 outbreak in Iran has caused many people to develop the disease. Since the onset of COVID-19 in Iran, healthcare services for the management of COVID-19 have been stratified at three levels: The primary prevention level, which involves measures such as education and promotion of personal and environmental health as well as protection and screening; the secondary prevention level, which includes the first-level outpatient care, second-level specialized inpatient care, and thirdlevel superspecialized inpatient care; and the tertiary prevention level, involving rehabilitation care during the recovery period in the referral system. The use of a referral and service stratification system within the national healthcare network, which covers all households up to the most peripheral level (home care level), has been one of the important contributions to the management of COVID-19 in Iran, which could enhance healthcare service delivery to patients efficiently and cost-effectively based on local evidence-based protocols.