Surgical patient care is considered complex due to the inherent characteristics of the environment itself, and this complexity demands a highly specialized profile from professionals, which is considered a determinant for ensuring continuous and individualized care. In this sense, the importance of the nurse's role in carrying out the planning and management of care for surgical patients is undeniable, since it is this professional who participates in all stages of the care provided. The objective was to develop a flowchart of care for elective surgical patients using permanent health education as a strategy. Qualitative study, of the action-research type, contemplating the exploratory, planning and action stages. Data collection took place from October to November 2022, through semi-structured interviews and collective meetings. The collected data, transcribed and validated by the participants, were entered into the Nvivo® software and analyzed using Bardin's ( 2004) content analysis method. Four categories were identified that articulated with each other, originating the metacategory: Mapping of the elective surgical process: challenges and perspectives for the management of nursing care. It was found that: mapping the stages of surgical care is the starting point for understanding the challenges experienced by nurses in care management and their impact on elective surgical care, and that the difficulty in accessing specialized consultations, the outsourcing of services the lack of management of spontaneous and scheduled demand represent critical points in queue management. The professional profile added to the overload were considered important and decisive in the optimization and resolution of the process. It was also noted that the nurses recognize the actions that involve the management of care and understand its importance for the effectiveness of qualified assistance. It is concluded that the re-signification of the investigated context, through permanent health education, enabled the construction and deconstruction of knowledge and practices aimed at the line of surgical care, valued the protagonism of the participants, and enabled the development of improvement actions in the construction of the service flowchart.