Planning and design of territorial healthcare facilities in rural areas: opportunities, advantages and recommendations

In most countries, the majority of healthcare facilities and hospitals are located in urban areas, causing limited access to essential medical services and treatments in rural regions. This situation is further exacerbated by the fact that rural areas are often characterised by isolation, poor infrastructure, and a lack of basic amenities. Often, the primary care system has been underdeveloped and does not provide adequate geographical coverage. This issue has far-reaching consequences on the health and well-being of the rural population and needs to be addressed by developing a comprehensive and sustainable strategy to foster the expansion of healthcare facilities in rural regions, as well as for the underlying challenges related to urban development and infrastructure, which impact on the access to healthcare services, in order to face the future demographic, epidemiologic, economic, and social developments. Nowadays, the advantages of an extensive and comprehensive primary care system are well-established and the role of primary care in prevention, treatment and management are delineated and endorsed in different strategic national documents. The opportunity of providing rural areas with territorial healthcare facilities is discussed, with a possible comparison with other practicable solutions (e.g. introduction of mobile health clinics, etc.). Several domains are analysed, starting from the contributing factors to the development of primary care facilities, the design of primary care centres, including healthcare typologies, new construction or renovation, accessibility and recognisability of the facilities, as well as urban regeneration strategies and the implications of the location in rural contexts at the architectural level. This paper addresses Albania and the Municipality of Finiq to exemplify the implementation of the proposed strategy. An illustration of the possible dimensioning and configuration, as well as recommendations for the design of local health services in the Finiq Municipality are proposed as a starting point for the discussion on the potential future scenarios of healthcare services in Albania. The results of this contribution are potential recommendations for the future planning and design of territorial healthcare facilities in remote areas.