This essay aims to discuss the necessary elements to build the concept of co-management from the perspective of the need to rethink ways of managing the Unified Health System, once the institutional routine exposes the limitations that traditional management faces to implement public policies, especially when it is a goal for the democratic transformation of their institutions. We present the concept of co-management formulated by Campos, and then perform a theoretical examination of three specific elements, namely: the concept of porosity, the production of new institutional logics of belonging and the relationship between co-management and knowledge. Finally, we propose that co-management be considered as the socialization and democratization of institutional devices, highlighting the its dependence on flows and social networks that promote the socialization of knowledge, of organizational and technological devices. By referring the concept of co-management to networking activities of health production we seek to reflect on the challenge of building a new democratic sociability, able to materialize the right to health. The co-management of institutions would be, in this perspective, fundamental for the co-production of health.
health management; democracy; public policy