Regulatory aspects and measures of the Emergency Care Network: a game of disputes between the public and private interests

The study analyzes regulatory aspects and measures as social production in the Emergency Care Network (RUE) of two health regions. This is a multiple case study of qualitative character, performed via 61 interviews with public administrators, users, and health services managers. The analysis had as theoretical reference the Theory of Social Production. We identified professional, lay, clientelistic, and governmental regulatory measures, in the systemic aspects, of the services and of access. The main results point to regulatory flows produced by movements of various social actors, with emphasis on the action of representatives of hospital service providers, especially private ones, characterizing the proposal of another regime: market regulation. We emphasize the limits and powers of arrangements, such as hospital and the Mobile Emergency Care Service (SAMU) regulation centers, the internal hospital regulation centers, and the use of WhatsApp. Health regulation in RUE consists of complex, contradictory, and conflicting social processes, whose flows are produced at the limit between the public and private interests.