Challenges in the coordination of children's healthcare.

Abstract

This is a qualitative survey with a hermeneutic-dialectic frame of reference, designed to identify how parents and caregivers see the attribute 'coordination' in children's healthcare, in terms of resolving problems in children's health. The interview was held with 16 people responsible for care of children under one year of age, served in Emergency Care Units of a municipality in the south of Brazil, in 2010. With the thematic analysis, the central category was identified as: Effects and results of fragile coordination in Children's Primary Health Care, with the following themes: Divergences between different health units in the organization of care; functional barriers and delays obstructing access to technologies; absence of effective communication; absence of medical transport; need for healthcare on an individual basis; and coordination involving management of healthcare. It was concluded that the absence of coordination results in the absence of a solution-based approach in healthcare for children under one year old, showing gaps in the organization of the services and in health management, since communication, access to technologies, referral and counter-referral systems, and secure transport become essential for organizing primary care services and offering fully rounded care to the child.