Evaluation of the performance of actions and outcomes in primary health care

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study has been to evaluate the performance of the primary care of Brazilian municipalities in relation to health actions and outcomes. METHODS: This is an evaluative, cross-sectional research, with a quantitative approach, aimed at the identification of the efficiency frontier of the primary care in health actions and outcomes in Brazilian municipalities. Secondary data have been collected from the Programa Nacional de Melhoria do Acesso e da Qualidade da Atenção Básica (National Program for Improving Access and Quality of Primary Care) and the Department of Informatics of the Brazilian Unified Health System, in 2012. The data envelopment analysis tool has been used for variable returns to scale with product orientation. RESULTS: Municipalities have been analyzed by population size, and small municipalities have presented a high percentage of inefficiency for both models. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis of efficiency has indicated the existence of a higher percentage of effective municipalities in the model of health actions than in the model of health outcomes.