Rural home visit within self-managed health insurance

Resumo

Introduction: The health plan of the servants of the State of Santa Catarina (SC Saúde) offers policyholders the service of preventive medicine home visits to patients with chronic diseases, including residents of rural areas throughout the state of Santa Catarina.

Objective: Provide comprehensive care, with a focus on health promotion and disease prevention for patients with chronic diseases. Increasing the sense of improving the quality of life, reducing complications, morbidity and mortality related to chronic diseases.

Methodology or experience description: Home visits are conducted in accordance with the risk classification of the insured, through a modified family risk of Coelho and Savassi`s scale. Once the insured is selected to receive the home visit team conducts visitors scheduling by telephone. The fact of the insured with chronic disease living in a rural area is the focus of most attention, because it might reflect on their access to health services and quality of life. Home visits are made by nursing staff trained for tracking and monitoring of chronic patients. Offering guidelines for health care and change of lifestyle.

Results: Currently the service of preventive medicine presents five thousand nine hundred and eighteen recipients of the SC Saúde registered to receive home visits, three hundred and three of this group live in rural areas. The region of Rio do Sul, located in the upper valley of the Itajaí river, is the one with the highest number of insured residents in rural areas, with 129 registered.

Conclusions or Hypothesis: In Brazil, the home visit is a tool mainly used by health professionals involved in primary care. Our work within a health plan for self-management, offering home visits to policyholders who live in rural areas is a differential when compared with other systems of Brazilian health insurance.