Professors Cássia Regina Gotler Medeiros and Olinda Lechmann Saldanha were chosen to present their scientific research at the VII Ibero-American Congress of Qualitative Health Research in the School of Medicine at the University of Barcelona, Spain, between the 5 th and the 7 th of September. This year’s topic is "Citizenship and transdisciplinarity: building networks". The two professors will present a study on people’s need for healthcare and strategies to improve the quality of primary care.

 

Psychologist and coordinator of Clínica Universitária Regional de Educação e Saúde (Cures, medical clinic), professor Olinda Saldanha wrote a paper entitled “Apoio matricial e institucional para a qualificação da atenção básica no enfrentamento às condições crônicas” where she researched on ways to improve primary care to deal with chronic diseases. “This study has been developed in partnership with the team at the Family Health Strategy with a view to improving work processes and drawing attention to the needs of people with chronic conditions. Understanding this scenario helps to prevent health conditions getting worse.” – she says.

 

Professor Cassia Medeiros, from the School of Nursing and Medicine, did a research project entitled “As trajetórias assistenciais revelando a rede de atenção à saúde das pessoas com doenças cardiovasculares”, where she assessed the quality of health care network from the perspective of people with cardiovascular disease who use the Sistema Único de Saúde (The Brazilian Public Health System). What seems to be clear in our research is what we call “public-private mix”, which means people use the Public Health System, but also rely on private physicians for medium complexity procedures as getting private medical care is usually faster. “On the other hand, for high complexity procedures, they rely on the Public Health System.” – says she.

The field research done by the two professors show results in common. Both have spotted communication problems between the staff in primary care, in medium and high complexity procedures. “Communication problems could interfere with the proper health care, resulting in wrong and repeated medical examinations and prescriptions” – says Cassia.

 

Based on this, the two professors suggested that integration between healthcare professionals should be stimulated from the very beginning in academia. “Univates has been working on pedagogical projects to prepare students to work with an integrated and interdisciplinary view.”- says Cassia. Cures is meant to be an environment for interdisciplinary practices. Interns at Cures have the opportunity to be in touch with different areas and professionals in Family Health Strategy, in primary care, in clinics and hospitals”, says she.

 

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— Cassia Regina Gotler Medeiros has a PhD in Nursing and is a professor at Univates School of Nursing and Medicine. She is the coordinator of Univates Study Group of Health Systems Development (Gedess).

 

— Olinda Lechmann Saldanha is a psychologist with a PhD in Teaching and a Psychology professor. She is the coordinator of the Clínica Universitária Regional de Educação e Saúde (Cures, medical clinic).

 

Author: Tiago Silva