The medical archive work process: new perspectives concerning health care

摘要

Generally, medical archive studies are restricted to the analysis of documents. Its activities achieve little expressiveness beyond the theories of scientific management, hampering the perception that care production may occur during these activities. This study aims to analyze hospital medical archive sector professionals’ work process from the dynamics of micro-policy articulated with institutional analysis. As a descriptive qualitative research theoretically based on micro-policy of the health work process and Institutional Analysis, this study identifies with analyzers daily issues of the medical archive that can disclose strategies developed by health workers and disputes that occur on a daily basis. Therefore, it was possible to recognize in two hospitals that these workers held important knowledge about the dynamics of the health work process. As facilitators of user care process, they establish their own strategies in the dynamics of care that reflect directly on the care dimension of these hospitals. In this perspective, the introduction of new investigations about this work process allows us to diversify the debate about health care and broaden the scope of research referred to public health.