EVALUATION OF THE WORK PROCESS OF FAMILY HEALTH TEAMS IN A MUNICIPALITY IN MINAS GERAIS, BRAZIL

Abstract The study had the goal of assessing the organization of the work process of family health teams in a municipality in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. It was a quantitative, cross-sectional analytical research performed in 2014. We investigated the forms for the Self-Assessment for the Improvement in the Access and Quality of Primary Health Care of 73 teams. A total of 14 items of the subdimension organization of the work process were considered, and they were scored from 0 to 10, with 0 meaning complete inadequacy and 10 meaning complete adequacy of the team to the assessed pattern. The teams were classified from the ‘highly unsatisfactory’ pattern to the ‘highly satisfactory’ pattern. The significance level of the statistical analyses was set as values of p < 0.05. A total of 86.3% were classified in the highly satisfactory/satisfactory pattern, and 13.7% were classified as average/highly unsatisfactory. Three items ‒ ‘Defined territory, bond with the population and responsibility for the fulfilment of the health needs’; ‘Coordination of care’; and ‘Monitoring of exam requests’ ‒ had inadequate performances. The teams from urban areas scored better in the assessment. The odontology professionals were the category that scored the highest in the assessment. Special attention should be devoted to the teams with low scores. A better organization of the work process should be strengthened, with the goal of enhancing the performance in the care to health of the community.