The teaching-service integration commissions play an important role in the realization of the National Policy for Continuing Education in Health. The purpose of this qualitative, descriptive study was to get to know the factors that enhance or weaken the construction and development of regional plans for continuing education in the view of the members participating in the teaching-service integration commissions in the state of Rio Grande do Sul (South Brazil). The participant sample was comprised based on the purposeful, intentional or deliberate method. The results show the importance of such commissions in the development of regional plans for continuing health education. The professionals' participation and involvement and the structuring of the services are considered facilitating factors. Limiting factors, meanwhile, are difficulties in coordination, participation, and personal and institutional involvement, in addition to the participation of the managers. The managers' involvement in the process is dual: their knowledge and involvement are considered facilitating factors, while ignorance and failure to facilitate insertion in the educational process are seen as harmful to the development of the process as a whole.
teaching-service integration commission; continuing health education; working process