Melhoria na utilização de um serviço de atenção secundária ambulatorial em saúde

Abstract

Introduction: The government of the state of Bahia proposed to improve access to specialty secondary care and fill the care gap linked to diagnostic support and specialized clinical care, through the implementation of Regional Polyclinics. One of the Polyclinics implemented, 26.3% of the vacancies offered were not used in the second half of 2018, generating a waste of resources. Objective: To improve the use of services offered by the Regional Health Polyclinic, through the application of an improvement cycle. Methodology: This is a cycle of improvement, a quasi-experimental study, without a control group, with before and after assessments, combined with time series analysis, carried out in the 2019/2020 biennium, in a Regional Health Polyclinic in the state from Bahia, Brazil. Quality indicators were established to assess the use of services offered in two moments, pre-intervention and post-intervention. The analysis was performed from the absolute and relative frequency and absolute and relative improvement. This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee. Results: Before the interventions, the evaluation identified an average use of services of 75.4% in the quarter. After the interventions were implemented, the first three quarters were used more than in the evaluation, with 80.4%, 79.5% and 79.3% of use, respectively. Only in the last quarter, the percentage of use was lower than in the evaluation, being 74.7%, influenced by the low use of exams/procedures. Conclusion: There was an improvement in the use of services offered by the Polyclinic by the consortium municipalities.