The purposes of this article are to review the concepts of health services access and utilization and to analyze how these concepts interrelate. Access is a complex concept (often used inaccurately) which changes over time and according to the context. Health services utilization is at the core of health systems functioning. Despite some disagreement, according to this review the prevailing perspective is that access is related to characteristics of services supply. Health care services utilization can be applied as a measure of access, but use of services depends on other factors. Individual and contextual factors influence the use of services. The article shows that the concept of access is becoming more comprehensive and is changing its focus from entry into the health system to outcome of care. Access is valued in relation to its impact on health and depends on the effectiveness of care delivered. As an outcome measure, access becomes multidimensional and difficult to operationalize. Finally, the article discusses how health determinants differ from those of health services utilization, which impacts directly on illness, but only indirectly on health.

The incidence of patients with adverse events at the three hospitals was similar to that in international studies. However, the proportion of preventable adverse events was much higher in the Brazilian hospitals.

A segurança do paciente como dimensão da qualidade do cuidado de saúde -um olhar sobre a literatura Patient safety as a dimension of the quality of health care -a look at the literature

The evaluation of the culture of patient safety in hospitals is nowadays considered as a management too, since it helps to identify problem areas and provide valuable information for planning improvements. This study explored the reliability and validity of the Brazilian version of the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture, an instrument that evaluates characteristics of patient safety culture among hospital staff. The reliability of the instrument was evaluated by analyzing the internal consistency of each dimension. The validity of the tool was carried out by means of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The sample was made up of 322 questionnaires that were collected in two Brazilian hospitals in 2012. Cronbach's alpha ranged from 0.52 to 0.91 for the different dimensions, with the exception of two, for which it was much lower. After excluding four items, the exploratory factor analysis presented adjusted indices that were appropriate for a 10 factor model.

Este artigo é uma síntese de alguns dos principais resultados das discussões realizadas ao longo de 18 meses entre pesquisadores de diversas instituições, afiliadas à Abrasco, e procura contribuir para a formulação de uma metodologia que permita: a) compreender quais são e como se inter-relacionam os fatores que influenciam a eficiência, a efetividade e a eqüidade no desempenho do SUS; b) melhorar a formulação de políticas e c) monitorar as desigualdades no acesso e na qualidade dos serviços recebidos pelos diferentes grupos sociais no Brasil. A metodologia desenvolvida nutre-se de elementos utilizados nas propostas de avaliação de desempenho dos sistemas de saúde canadense, australiano, inglês e a da OPS e tem o formato de um painel de controle (dashboard), onde podem ser visualizadas simultaneamente diferentes dimensões da avaliação. O artigo descreve a experiência na adaptação e desenvolvimento da metodologia e fornece sugestões no sentido de aplicá-la para melhorar a formulação da política de saúde no Brasil.