Transfer of Health Care from a reference clinic to primary care: paths towards integrality

Abstract

This research was carried out in a pediatric outpatient clinic of a secondary and tertiary health care unit, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. The transfer of care is a set of actions aimed at guaranteeing the access of patients to primary care, the integrality between the levels of care through the cooperation between health care services in partnership with the health care network and with the Primary Care Units (PCUs) at patient’s neighborhood. Promoting and supervising the transfer of children form secondary to primary care becomes the general objective of this research. The results have shown that most transfers were successful and the difficulties reported by some managers are related to the underfunding of the PCUs. The transfers resulted in lower costs for the patients and increased offer of consultations at the outpatient clinic, increasing the access to the adequate level of health care according to the patient’s necessities, respecting SUS principles.