Health regionalization in the ABC Region: the interests at stake

Abstract

Regionalizing the Brazilian National Health System implies the joint construction of a planning that comprises the interconnection, coordination, regulation, and funding of the network of services within a territory, in a continued process of all kinds of negotiation. The 2006 Pact for Health has three instruments for managing a regional health system: the Regional Executive Land-Use Planning (RDP); the Interconnected Agreed Scheduling (AIS); and the Executive Investment Planning (IDP). This article aims at debating, discussing, and explaining the operation of these instruments in the regional health system of the ABC Region, which is currently coordinated by the Regional Health Department I (DRS I). With this guiding objective, this descriptive study of the ABC Region is based on ten interviews with municipal secretaries and directors; hospital managers; a manager of the ABC Foundation; and a manager of DRS I. It was concluded that PDR might need to be updated in order to balance the relation between supply and demand; PPI is a competition arena, rather than a space for interconnection, negotiation, and agreement; and PDI is not that significant, since the resources from the Ministry of Health are not enough for the health actions in this region.