Currently accepted at: Online Journal of Public Health Informatics
Date Submitted: Sep 8, 2025
Date Accepted: May 4, 2026
This paper has been accepted and is currently in production.
It will appear shortly on 10.2196/83494
The final accepted version (not copyedited yet) is in this tab.
The Use of Tomographs in Brazil’s National Health System: A Case Study on Efficiency of the Public Network in Rio Grande do Norte
ABSTRACT
Background:
The evaluation of health technologies is fundamental to the sustainability of the Brazilian National Health System (SUS), especially in highly complex and costly procedures such as computed tomography.
Objective:
This study analyzed the financial efficiency of CT scanner use in the SUS in the state of Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil), considering the distribution of supply, the profile of providers, and the idle capacity of the public network.
Methods:
A total of 49,061 CT scan requests registered in the state system “RegulaRN Ambulatorial” between October 2023 and January 2025 were examined. Subsequently, data cleaning and grouping were performed
Results:
The results indicated that 66.8% of requests were from oncology patients, 61.2% of whom were female, predominantly from municipalities with higher population densities, such as Natal and Mossoró, with an average waiting time of 44 days. More than 99% of the exams were performed by private and philanthropic hospitals contracted by SUS, while public units with CT scanners accounted for less than 1% of production, evidencing significant underutilization.
Conclusions:
The findings suggest that strategically shifting demand to the public health system can increase efficiency, reduce costs and waiting times, and promote greater equity in access, contributing empirical evidence for more rational public policies on the use of diagnostic technologies. Clinical Trial: N/A
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.