[Impact of the nurse consultation program on primary care]

In the present study, the impact of the institution of a nurse consultation program on the overall demand for care was evaluated. To this end, two one-year periods (before and after the institution of the program in a rural medium) were evaluated. The achieved results include an overall reduction in the number of patients which attended daily the medical consulting room (46.9 on the first year and 36 on the second), with a highly significant increase on the mean duration of the visit (3 min 14 sec and 4 min 11 sec, respectively). The derived demand (referral to specialists and request of complementary investigations) only had a increase in the laboratory requests (1.85 more for every 100 visits). The drug expenditure did not show overall changes: however, if the increase in the mean cost of prescriptions for that year (16.22% for active individuals and 15.57% for pensioners) is taken into consideration, then there was a significant reduction in both overall expenditure and in the mean expenditure per prescription. It was concluded, therefore, that the use of the nurse consultation service in a primary care center results in an improved quality of care, with a reduction in the generated drug expenditure.