Municipal Managers at the Unified Health System: Profile and Perspectives for the 2017-2020 Management Cycle

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the profile and perceptions of the municipal health secretariats (SMS) about the perspectives for SUS at the national level, highlighting the variations presented in the north, northeast, central - west, southeast and south regions. It seeks to understand to what extent the consolidation of the SUS has been accompanied by the democratization of access to the SMS position and the modernization of public management practices. The data were collected with an electronic questionnaire applied via web, answered by 2,313 managers, within the scope of the National Survey of Municipal Health Secretaries, a national study, carried out in 26 states in 2017 and 2018. The results show that the position of local SUS manager is increasingly occupied by postgraduate women who perform the function for the first time and with previous experience in the management of primary care. In addition, the study highlights the recurrent presence of structural constraints to the improvement of local management capacity, especially the reduction of federal funding, difficulties in accessing specialized exams and consultations, judicialization, incipient dialogue with external control entities, the inadequacies of the state manager’s role in planning and regionalization and the need for training of municipal health councilors