The authors going through an analyses of the trends in current policy of integration of health services in the public field in Brazil, propose a qualitative assessment of these services as an imperative need at this point of implementation of that policy. They focused the Health Center of Paulinia in the state of São Paulo that since 1974 has been running an integrated system where the primary atention is the first door the patient hits searching for health care. Trying to work with qualitative parameters of medical attention they analysed 663 adult consultations, examining their diagnostic pattern, number and type of medicine prescribed, number of complementary laboratory examens and the further destination of the patient. Some indices as number of consultations done/number of complementary laboratoty examens; NC/ number of medicine prescribed NC/ NC with medicine prescriptions and NC/ number of asks for return in the service for a follow-up, were stablished. All these indices were related with the pattern of diagnostic done. Despite the simplicity of these experimental indices the authors believe they are good enough to detect services in a good path of quality from others whose goal is simply production of consultation as an answer to pressures of a social demand. They also believe further studies must be developed in this field trying to improve the health care in the Brazilian net of public services.
