Structural typology of Primary Health Care Units in the Federal District

Abstract

The structure typology is a composite indicator that includes physical structure, availability of equipment, material and human resources, and information systems. A 43-variable instrument based on the proposed national typology was constructed to develop a typology to evaluate the Primary Health Care Units (PHC Units) in the Federal District (FD), Brazil. Data were collected from the PHC Unit and the FD’s information systems from August/2020 to January/2021. In the analysis, the dimensions were weighted and classified into types A, B, C, D, and E (A adequate/E insufficient)—one hundred fifty-seven of the 165 existing PHC Units provided complete data for evaluation. Three PHC Units obtained the maximum Type A classification, representing 1.9% of the total; 53 PHC Units were Type B (33.8%), 52 Type C (33.1%), 30 Type D (19.1%), and 19 Type E (12.1%). Nine PHC Units scored very low in ‘available services’ with unavailable vaccinations, telehealth, tests, and medicines and had incomplete teams. The result showed that the PHC Units in the FD require structural improvements, which, aligned with the other actions provided for in the Qualis-APS Program, will improve PHC quality in the FD and develop the full potential of the health teams.