This paper addresses the topic of Home Health Care (HHC), a mode of assistance that adds rational and humanitarian motivations, and currently adapted by the health systems. By means of a brief historic-conceptual contextualization, the predominance of this approach is recognized in the hospital context, giving rise, however, to the problem of the need to strengthen it in the context of basic health attention. For that matter, a comparative analysis between the proposition of home health care in the scope of basic attention in Brazil, as proposed by the Ministry of Health, and the model adopted in Canada is discussed. Despite socio-economic and sanitation differences between the two countries, the analysis has provided elements that can support the Brazilian proposition, be it in regard to normative and operational aspects or in regard to its political-institutional feasibility.
Home care; Basic assistance; Service organization