Strengthening primary healthcare is one of the most effective interventions for improving healthcare systems efficiency and population health. Functions of the primary level of care include health promotion and disease prevention, serve as the first point of contact for managing new non-emergency health issues, and referring patients to specialist care and hospital-based services when appropriate. A high-performing primary care system that provides accessible and high-quality services can reduce acute deterioration in people living with four long-term conditions that are widely prevalent in LAC; asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), congestive heart failure (CHF), high blood pressure and diabetes, and reduce unnecessary admissions to hospital. For this reason, measuring the number of hospitalisations with these diseases as the main diagnosis is and indicator of the capacities of the healthcare system to provide necessary care at an early stage in the primary level. Because of the postponement of non-emergency services in 2020 due to the COVID‑19 pandemic, hospitalisation rates in 2021 might include the effect of countries’ efforts to clear the backlog of services and not purely reflect the quality of the health system to minimise avoidable hospitalisations. In this line, figures should be interpreted with caution.