The institutional support model of diadema's public health school to provide educational opportunities and quality in health care management

The local management of the public health care system in Diadema (SP), city with 386.779 habitants and approximately 60 health establishments located in the metropolitan area of São Paulo (Brazil), has been developing a new strategy that uses the continuing education (EPS) as a tool to increase the quality of the public health services.
Therefore, the Public Health School composed by a team of specialized professionals in education, medicine, nurse, politics, sociology, health administration, works as an institutional support team, regionalized, that have responsibility to provide common spaces to discuss the local problems, strength the public workforce, provide inter-section agreements and develop the effectiveness of the health care processes.
This study case was centered on the interviews and local groups’ participation as the main methodology. The strategy of local strengthening groups has started in 2007 and still develops permanent activities in the primary care and the specialized care in Diadema.
The results show that building quality in health care management is a challenge for the public sector. And the consolidation of the permanent education policy in health as a management resource can contribute to create a co-responsabilization scenarium between the health workers, the health care system users and the local government. This strategy can facilitate the essential dialog among those actors in order to guarantee the main propose of the public health care system, that is, to offer quality health care with effectiveness working to decrease the social inequalities in access to health care and the different social needs.