Planning and building Health Care Networks in Brazil’s Federal District

Abstract

This article reports on the experience of implementing Health Care Planning (HCP) in the territories of Itapoã, Paranoá and São Sebastião in the East Region of Brazil’s Federal District. HCP began at the end of 2016 with Itapoã and was expanded to the other territories in 2018. The results point to a better organised health care network, specifically as regards care for chronic conditions, hypertension and diabetes. The activities involved a series of thematic theory workshops and tutoring workshops carried out in Primary Health Care (PHC) and Specialised Ambulatory Care (SAC) facilities. In PHC, macro-processes (territorialisation, family registration, risk stratification, family risk classification, local diagnosis, care by block of hours, elimination of waiting times, and others) were organised to support meeting certain of the population’s demands. In SAC, an Ambulatory Specialities Clinic was set up using the technology of continuous care provided by a multi-professional team to high- and very high-risk hypertensive and diabetic patients stratified in PHC, and care provision is shared. One of the strong points in the integration of PHC and SAC was matrix support provided by SAC professionals in “laboratory units”. HCP has been an important management tool for organising health care in the East Region.

Keywords
Health care planning; Health care networks; Primary health care; Matrix support