National Program for the Evaluation of Health Services (PNASS) 2015-2016: an analysis on Brazil's hospitals

The present work aims to evaluate the performance of hospitals participating on the National Program for the Evaluation of Health Services (Programa Nacional de Avaliação de Serviços de Saúde - PNASS, 2015-2016).

This is a descriptive cross-sectional quantitative study, which measured the performance of hospitals participating in the program, using data from the first PNASS 2015-2016 evaluation instrument. The processes evaluation questionnaire used in hospitals had 102 items, 17 criteria, grouped into four blocks or dimensions.

A total of 1,681 hospitals was evaluated. The average score for each block was: Organizational management (64); technical and logistical support for care provision (73); health care and care management (64); specific services/units (72). Regarding the administrative sphere, the best average performance was of the federal sphere, followed by the state and municipal ones. The hospitals located in the Southern and Southeastern regions presented the best performance (73), followed by the Midwestern (62.7), Northeastern (61.2), and Northern (58.5) regions.

The hospitals that perform highly complex procedures, just like those large and special ones, obtained a better performance. Public federal hospitals, with municipal management, also had the best results, as well as hospitals from the Southern and Southwestern regions of the country.