Use of electronic health records and primary health care accessibility according to data from the third cycle of the PMAQ-AB

The use of electronic health records (EHR) in primary healthcare (PHC) aims for bet-ter integration of services and care quality. One of most the critical points of Brazilian PHC is access. This article aims to analyze, through data from the third evaluation cycle of the Brazilian Program for Improving Access and Quality of Pri-mary Care (PMAQ-AB), the relationship between the use of electronic health records and the para-meters of access of the participant teams. Cross-sectional analytical study with secondary data. Data from 38,865 primary care teams, 30,346 health units and 140,444 interviewed users were evaluated. The use of EHR was associated with greater care for non-programmed demands (OR 1.664; 95%CI 1.485-1.866), risk and vulnerabi-lity assessment (OR 1.329; 95%CI 1.122-1.574) and use of protocols for clinical conducts (OR 1.656; 95%CI 1.530-1.793), in addition to a gre-ater possibility of scheduling consultation by te-lephone (OR 3.179; 95%CI 3.030-3.335). Services using EHR are more likely to be the patients first contact (OR 1.226; 95%CI 1.171-1.283) and to be sought when facing urgent health problem (OR 1.198; 95%CI 1.161-1.236). The results point to a concrete possibility of improving access through computerization.