Health services research and equity

The Health Services Research Group includes health managers, public health specialists, and experts on organizational studies and public policies from ENSP and affiliated hospitals.

This research group has long developed research on organizational and financing aspects that will allow reaching this objective of high-quality care, with a particular focus on:

• Primary care models;
• Vertical integration of primary and secondary care providers,;
• Hospital performance measurement;
• Quality measurement and comparison (including risk adjustment).

In terms of methodology, the Research Group develops projects predominantly in the area of the health system and services, developing retrospective or prospective analyses, using mainly qualitative methodologies, namely in-depth interviews, questionnaire surveys addressed to experts, patients and/or citizens, decision support techniques, as a process of group dynamics (brainstorming, benchmarking, nominal group, delphi, focus group, etc.), systematic literature review, complemented in some of the research by quantitative methodologies, through the use of hospital generated and patients databases, developed from data collection of clinical records and complementary diagnostic tools, in particular demographic data specific to the analysis underway. The most commonly used tools for the analysis are the SPSS or SAS programs.