Abstract
This study had the aim of understanding the dynamics of the process of institutionalization of the only Family Health Support Center set up in the city of Campinas, in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Even though the city is a pioneer in the practice of matrix support, in it, the establishment of the Center happens at a very slow pace, and it is relevant to identify the factors related to the inexpressive presence of this organizational arrangement, as well as to analyze its practices. We chose to make a single-case research, and, in order to produce the empirical material, we used participant observation and focal groups. The data were grouped in two axes: the ‘made history’, which focus on the context of the municipal health policies; and ‘history in the making’, which refers to the comprehension of the perceptions of the participants of that history. We observed that the experience of the studied Family Health Support Center presents potentialities and tensions. The matrix support methodology is the basis of the practice of the team, and favors the bond with primary health care, the development of an interactive interprofessional relationship, guided by the exchange of knowledge and the strengthening of the work in network. However, the difficulties in the expansion of these centers as an imperative organizational arrangement point to the permanence of the tensions regarding the history of the conformation of the matrix practices, which are based on independent teams and are organized by topics.
matrix support; Family Health Support Center; primary health care