HEALTH CARE NETWORKS

Abstract

The implementation of a national health system in a continental country like Brazil is a great challenge, especially if we remember that the Unified Health System (SUS) is being built without disruption. In more than thirty years of SUS, several proposals have been implemented in all its dimensions: regulation, management, financing, training of personnel and organization of health services. In the field of organization, the ongoing innovation is the implementation of Health Care Networks (RAS). The organization of the SUS in a network aims to overcome its fragmentation, making it integrated, offering a service that meets the challenges of the new epidemiological and demographic profile of the 21st century, in which chronic diseases and an increase in the elderly population prevails. It is an integrative review whose objective is to present a reflection on the concepts of RAS and its theoretical references, based on articles published in the Virtual Health Library. Some results: interest of public health journals on the theme expressed in the increase in publications in the last years; conceptual hegemony of the managerial dimension; and some studies based on Social and Human Sciences references, despite that hegemony. We conclude that there is a polysemy in the concepts and several challenges for its effectiveness.