Case study: coproduction of the Qualis-APS program to increase quality in Primary Health Care in Brasília

Abstract

To encourage improvements in the quality of Primary Health Care in Brasília, the Federal District Health Department established the Qualis-APS Program in 2019, a co-production between healthcare professionals, managers and researchers from the University of Brasília and the Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. By involving managers and workers in the design, coordination, planning and execution, the aim was to promote engagement and a sense of ownership, prerequisites for evidence-based decision-making. The aim is to describe the conception and implementation of the evaluative process and the stages of the first evaluation cycle, concluded in 2022. I. Diagnosis of the structure of all 165 Basic Health Units; II. Elaboration of quality standards to compose self-assessment instruments, based on subsidies obtained in workshops with 544 health professionals and users; III. Development of the Qualis- APS Platform; IV. Self-assessment of the 603 Family Health Teams/Oral Health Teams, 100 Primary Health Care Management Teams and 59 Teams from the Expanded Family Health and Primary Care Centers on the Platform; V. Planning and elaboration of the Action Plan for Quality, made by the teams; VI. On-site evaluation of the Basic Units, by external researchers; VII. Certification of teams by the Health Department. The experience of the first cycle was successful and the second cycle is ongoing now

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