Introduction:

In Cuba, the family nurse is distinguished by having multiple work areas, and for each one different resources are necessary. It is not known if the resource consumed is too much or too little for the activities carried out.

Objective:

To characterize the efficiency of the nursing activity in family doctor and nurse’s offices.

Methods:

Cross-sectional, descriptive study carried out with all the family medical offices of three outpatient polyclinics in Diez de Octubre Municipality. An analysis model was solved that involved maximization of results and constant returns to scale data with six results indicators and four resource indicators.

Results:

The average efficiency was between 86.66% and 95.63%. In order to improve efficiency, the following average values ​​of monitoring compliance must be achieved: mother and child care, between 85.32% and 88.58%; for each patient with chronic diseases, between 8.99% and 41.67%; for patients with communicable diseases, between 34.87% and 54.55%; for the elderlies, between 65.70% and 90.23%; and for vaginal Pap smear tests, between 91.97% and 162.72%. In addition, there was an average reduction on consumption of materials that can be used, between 11.25% and 47.28%; in medicines, between 15.31% and 107.22%; and in human resources, between 15.01% and 32.72%.

Conclusions:

High levels of pure technical efficiency were determined for the nursing activity in the outpatient polyclinics, although the presence of inefficient units was verified. There are units with structurally determined inefficiency, and to solve it, an analysis of the consumption of resources is necessary.

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