The creative potential of health work to develop an integrated care model in Brazilian primary health care  

In November 2015, at the 3rd World Congress on Integrated Care and 8th National Congress of Integrated Medicine, “Co-producing High Quality People-Centered Integrated Care for ALL”, Debora Santos presented her PhD research on primary health care teams in Alagoas, the most unequal state in Brazil. According to Debora Santos, while Brazil's Unified Health System (SUS) is headed by principles of integrated care, in practice a biomedical conception of health typically prevails instead of one focused on integrated care. Therefore, the objective of her research was to identify potential ways to develop an integrated care model of primary health care focused on the principles of social health rights, integrated access, equity, team work and health promotion. Through focus groups and interviews with primary health care teams she identified several challenges and potentialities for integrated care. For example,  the teams faced both objective (clinical) and subjective (emotional) needs but had limited ...