Demands of the emergency services and the work process in open-door services.

Abstract

This study is aimed at identifying and analyzing users’ demands to emergency services of a Health Center, as well as examining the organization of work in that service, identifying how users’ access to, acceptance by and bond to the Health system takes place. It is a case study of qualitative approach. Data collection was carried out as free observation by time sampling. Observation focus was on the organization of the work process and on care given to users that obtained some kind of attention at the Emergency Service. Data analysis was based on a dialectic approach. Data obtained were classified in relevance structures and later grouped in two sets: Demands to the emergency services; work organization and use of light technologies. Work process in emergency services is organized in order to meet some of the population’s health needs, responding as much as possible to the aim of treating the main complaint, refering the user, when necessary, to references of distinct complexity levels regulated in the Heath System’s hierarchy. Acceptance is present in the actions of professionals, but it is still little explored as a strategy to widen access and bond to the System. The main reasons for users to seek the service were: serious situations and risk situations, acute complaints that involved physical and emotional discomfort, specific needs characterized as non-urgent, complementary care regarding that received in other health services and the bond to the service itself. It has been demonstrated that users see the search for a good service differently from what workers see. The former seeks emergency services to solve problems that bring them difficulty and discomfort; to the latter, users’ needs are defined based on the biological model and the System’s organization.