Production of hospital admissions through the Unified Health System in the municipality of Ribeirão Preto, SP.

Abstract

Municipal managers need to dedicate special attention to hospitalizations, due to the financial volume they consume and to the possibility of reorganizing the local health system. This descriptive and cross-sectional study characterizes the production of hospitalizations, in physical and financial terms, between 1996 and 2003, in Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil. Data were obtained from a secondary data source, the Datasus database, and showed an increase of 56% in hospitalizations, and 156.3% in financial resources during this period. The largest growth occurred in the clinical surgery area (72.4%), which concentrates more complex and technological procedures, implying higher financial remuneration than in other specialties.