Permanent education in the healthcare field: a management strategy to think, reflect and build educational practices and work processes

Abstract

The present work reports the experience of the local authority of Embu, in the State of São Paulo, in the implementation of the National Policy of Permanent Health Education (PHE) proposed by the Ministry of Health. This strategy was adopted by the municipal management with the objective of identifying and defining educational actions that qualify health care and management through the education and development of the workers of the sector. PHE works with tools that aim at the critical reflection on the daily practice of the health services, being an educational process applied to work that enables changes in the relations, processes, healthcare practices and persons. Other potentialities of this strategy are: strengthening of social control; re-politicization of the Brazilian public health system (SUS); stimulation to the leading role of users and workers in the health and disease process; and production of a positive impact on the individual and collective health of the population.