Composite indicator to evaluate quality of municipal management of primary health care.

OBJECTIVE To develop a composite indicator to evaluate the quality of municipal management of primary health care. METHODS The evaluation model focuses on aspects of health system management. Fifty-five performance indicators were used and classified according to the criteria of relevance, effectiveness, efficacy and efficiency. The measures were aggregated through an additive data envelopment analysis model for measures of value, merit and quality. Data was utilized from 36 municipalities in Santa Catarina State (Southern Brazil), with populations between 10 thousand and 50 thousand residents in 2006. RESULTS The results are presented as monotonic measures over the interval [0, 1] (score = 1: efficient; other values: inefficient). Five municipalities had a score of 1 in the quality of management for actions promoting access, while eight municipalities received a score of 1 in the quality of management of actions for service provision; the other municipalities were classified as inefficient (score < 1) for both dimensions. CONCLUSIONS The quality of municipal management in primary health care can be evaluated with a composite indicator, constructed through linear programming techniques, which simultaneously considers the criteria of relevance, effectiveness, efficacy and efficiency and expresses them as measures of value, merit and quality.