The nursing care system from a Luhmannian perspective.

Objective: to investigate the socially-relevant communication of the nursing system from the Luhmannian perspective.

Method: the investigation process was based in grounded theory. The data was collected between February and September 2011, through interviews carried out with nurses and student nurses at a university in the South of Brazil.

Results: The central phenomenon--recognizing nursing care as an all-embracing interactive and associative phenomenon--resulted from the inter-weaving of three categories: learning the context of care as a whole, organizing the environment for the other professionals, and visibilizing interactive and associative care.

Conclusion: investing in a socially relevant communication for nursing entails developing a code for functional differentiation, which may strengthen health promotion and healthy living for individuals, families and communities.