The principles and guidelines of the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) impose a healthcare service structure based on public policy networks which, combined with the financing model adopted, leads to market failings. This imposes barriers to the management of the public health system and the enactment of SUS objectives. The institutional characteristics and the heterogeneity of players, allied to the existence of different healthcare approaches, generate analytical complexity in the study of the global dynamics of the SUS network. There are limitations in the use of quantitative methods based on static analysis of retrospective SUS data. Thus, an approach taking SUS as a complex system using innovative quantitative methodology based on computational simulation is proposed. This paper sought to analyze challenges and possibilities of the combined application of cellular automata modeling and agent-based modeling for simulation of the evolution of the SUS healthcare service network. This approach should permit better understanding of the organization, heterogeneity and structural dynamics of the SUS service network and a minimization of the effects of market failings on the Brazilian health system.
Healthcare management; Market failings; Brazilian Unified Health System; Public policy networks; Complex system; Agent-based modeling