Health management’s reflections in a southern Brazil city

This article seeks to deepen knowledge on management concepts in collective health and think through practices in the area, based on the experience of Sapucaia do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Considering the complexity inherent to the proposal of the Brazilian National Health System, the text links theories that provide visibility to management modes that cover macro- and micropolitical actions, strengthening the deployment of the System principles. Thus, we found inspiration in Koselleck and Morin’s thought as booster of analysis. Morin’s contribution takes place by means of conceptual operators of the Complexity Theory, which point out movements of interconnection, interaction, and transformation. Koselleck provides the following categories: experience spaces and expectation horizons, encouraging reflection, due to the emphasis on the analysis of meaning construction for concepts in context. Management challenges are presented in relation to the function of managing, planning, and optimizing the State’s interests and those related to health consumption, interconnecting the political dimension to the technical-scientific one. So, we can observe a health planning that involves the implementation of institutional support, the encouragement to popular participation, and the taking of continued health education actions that result in a rather humanized care. It is also worth going further in studies that identify epistemological bases in health management to favor the identification of theories that can influence and justify on technical terms the political decisions, opening democratic dialogic spaces to achieve advances in Brazilian National Health System.

Health Management; Health Planning; Brazilian National Health System