Assessment of organizational and performance characteristics of basic health care units in the west district of Ribeirão Preto–SP

This study focuses on the assessment of primary health services (PHS) in an interior city of São Paulo State – Brazil, evaluating organizational and performance features of the health units that comprise the PHS network of the West Health District of Ribeirao Preto-SP-Brazil (WHDRP). The main goal was to assess the organizational and performance features of the Basic Health Care (BHC) according to users’ reports. The specific goals were to characterize the users’ profile and assess the essential features of BHC at Family Health Units (FHU) and the Basic Health Units (BHU), comparing their features. The study subjects were 770 people, users of the Units of the WHDRP BHC network. Data was collected by means of the instruments composing the Primary Care Assessment Tool (PCAT) (ALMEIDA; MACINKO, 2006), from November 16 to December 20, 2007.  Statistical tests were used, including Student’s t, Chi-square and logistic regression. The analyses were performed using SPSS software, with a = 0.05 significance level. The results showed that the bottleneck of the WHDRP BHC network is access. The health care practice does not focus on the families or the community in the work process. The Units provide an array of services and are established as a front door entrance to the health system. There is a bond with the health users and with actions for coordinating the BHC services. The FHU showed better organizational and performance features on seven of the eight assessed attributes. The only feature with no statistically significant difference among the FHU and BHU was Health Care Coordination. The FHU showed strength to achieve a performance level more suitable to BHC features.