February 2020
The essay The concept of the regionalization of the Sistema Único de Saúde and its historical time assumes that from a simple administrative guideline, regionalization has become the main concept for enabling the doctrine of equitable and universal coverage behind the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS in its Portuguese acronyms).
The researchers Ana Luiza D’Ávila Viana (University of São Paulo), Guilherme Arantes Mello and Marcelo Demarzo (both from the Federal University of São Paulo) believe that the revision of such concept will allow to embrace larger productive possibilities. At the interface between studies of the historicity of the concepts and extensive fieldwork, it is argued that the traditional concept of the regionalization of the SUS has reached the historical limits of its productive capacity.
The graphic of a single co-authorship network of coordinators of the National Network of Clinical Research in Teaching Hospitals, illustrating the idea of complex networks (Tenório, 2016).
According to the researchers, the updating of the concept of regionalization challenges innovative perspectives for a clinical system integrated in complex networks with new processes, instruments, clinical models, among others. The updated concept is part of an intersectoral conception that not only contributes towards promoting equitable and effective health care models, but also indicates the boundless inductive potential of the SUS in the development of intelligence networks and wide-ranging urban and regional development.
Paradoxically, this new conception helps diminish – or rationalize – the scale of organization and planning of the system, in that it enables the regional network to be sized as the smallest unit of systemic complexity in the SUS.
Read the full article here.
