THE STRUCTURE OF A PUBLIC EMERGENCY CARE SERVICE, FROM THE WORKERS' VIEW: PERSPECTIVES ON QUALITY

This qualitative, exploratory-descriptive study was performed with the objective to understand the perception of workers in a public emergency care service regarding the quality of the local structure. Data collection was performed in April of 2010 by means of individual interviews, and then analyzed according to the Thematic Content Analysis method, which permitted the identification of one category supported by the following subcategories: material resources, human resources, physical resources, financial resources, normative instruments, and information systems. The results demonstrated that the subjects made a positive evaluation of the structure, highlighting the availability of material resources, renovations and adjustments that were made, professional qualification and training, the transfer of financial resources according to the institutional goals, protocol-guided services, and supervision of the information using quality indicators. In conclusion, despite the existing weaknesses in the sector, such as high temperature of the environment and a personnel shortage, workers consider that the structure is effective in meeting the principles of quality.