Healthcare regulation is a complex activity that includes many tools and strategies and can be divided into two dimensions: Socioeconomic and managerial. This theoretical-conceptual study discusses how the references of the ergological approach contribute epistemologically to healthcare regulation. Ergology is considered as an attempt to understand how the microcosm of human activity flows into and out of the macrocosm of social life. This perspective discusses the debate concerning norms and values and the ongoing crisis among the economic, political, legal and human activity that exists in society. In this sense, this study discusses how the dialectic approach of ergology, i.e. a perspective that considers that historical and social progress occurs through opposition, can contribute to the understanding of the arena of disputes that the regulatory activity in health is turned into, in the consequent strengthening of its social, economic and managerial objectives, and in minimizing its main limitations.
government regulation; regulation and supervision in health; knowledge; ergology