[Comprehensiveness and healthcare technologies: a narrative on conceptual contributions to the construction of the comprehensiveness principle in the Brazilian Unified National Health System]

Abstract

Comprehensiveness is the most challenging principle for building health reform in the Brazilian Unified National Health System (SUS). This study aims to identify critical moments in the conceptual debate on comprehensiveness and its contributions to reflection on healthcare technologies in the SUS. The essay addresses some conceptual constructs that approach comprehensiveness as an underlying principle in health programs and actions at various levels and in various dimensions of the healthcare organization - from intersubjective interactions to the organization of regional networks. The study was based on a non-systematic literature review on comprehensiveness and related themes in the Brazilian public health field in the last five decades. The study proposed a chronology/typology spanning the 1960s to the 2010s, divided into four significant periods or categories. The narrative is not intended to be exhaustive, but to build a comprehensive reference base capable of contributing to analyses, assessments, and debates on healthcare organization in the SUS according to the comprehensiveness principle.