Introduction:

The quality of care in health services, due to the complexity of meeting established needs and expectations is of interest not only for professionals and technicians, but also for states, governments. It is common to frame the actions in the health sector with four words: equity, efficacy, effectiveness and efficiency.

Objective:

To analyze the relationship between efficacy, effectiveness, efficiency and equity of the health system and the quality of health services.

Development:

A bibliographic review was carried out where the search for information related to the topic was conducted in the databases CUMED, EBSCO Hots, Hinari, PubMed, SciELO, Medline, Medilatina and LILACS. The search was performed only in Spanish. Efficacy was closely related to competence, and referred to the potential to achieve a result, under conditions of maximum conditioning for its attainment. Effectiveness was related to performance, where dexterity was demonstrated in the execution of actions. Efficiency was related to the financial stability and economic sustainability of the system. Equity was reflected in satisfaction, this was the superior stage and final destination of health services, where the achievements of the system were reflected.

Conclusions:

The efficacy, effectiveness, efficiency and equity of the health system are indissolubly related to the quality of health services.

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