Abstract
The size of the Italian expenditure for the health care on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and on total public expenditure, is in line with those of the major industrialized countries, and somewhat lower than the European average. The Italian healthcare sector does not simply face a contraction of the expenditure: in effect, it should be highlighted that Italy currently does not spend “a lot” and, above all, invests “little” in the mentioned sector. Nevertheless, the health sector can be a very important flywheel for the economic recovery, provided that a lot of attention is paid, and the best resources are invested. In this work, the authors intend developing an analysis of the desirability of investment on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the health sector, and the consequent compatibility with current expenditure, by identifying at the outset the channels multipliers related to the resources at present allocated to the current health expenditure and capital account. For this analysis, two different simulation scenarios have been considered: in the first, an increase in Health services demand by Government has been studied, while in the second, an increase in final demand of Health services by Households has been considered.
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Notes
- 1.
Corte dei Conti, Relazione ente territoriali Sanità, 2014 in http://www.quotidianosanita.it/allegati/create_pdf.php?all=7650214.pdf; See also: Rapporto 2013 sul Coordinamento della Finanza Pubblica- 28.05.2013 in http://www.regioni.it/it/show-presentazione_del_rapporto_2013_sul_coordinamento_della_finanza_pubblica_-_28052013_/news.php?id=299026.
- 2.
In fact the impact of the Italian public health spending on GDP and on total public spending is in line with those of more industrialized countries and somewhat lower than the European average. According to the latest available data from Istat (2012), in Italy public health spending per capita is well below the average of OECD countries. See http://www.sanita.ilsole24ore.com/art/dibattiti-e-idee/2014-02-10/dallassociazione-dossetti-class-action-130644.php?uuid=Ab0MKYMJ.
- 3.
The authors argue that the problem is not the sustainability of the system rather than its survival.
- 4.
An example is the industrial district wellness spa: http://ideario.formez.it/content/distretto-produttivo-del-benessere-termale-siciliano.
- 5.
A serious policy of investments in ICT, in fact, may generate significant improvements both from the point of view of the ability of care and with respect to containment of expenditure. For example, one of the cornerstones to a more effective and efficient health care system is digital innovation: according to the data, if the Italian health system realized completely the potential of digital technologies, it could save 6.8 billion a year—much more than the cuts expected in 2015 and 2016 for financing public health sector. See—as an example—the case of the Region “Marche”: http://www.ecommunity.marche.it/AgendaDigitale/tabid/174/Default.aspx.
- 6.
The key elements are: “an evaluation network that allows an effective monitoring capable of making the benchmarking technique a tool to control and effectively manage the system; a redesign of accounting rules that gradually helps to strengthen the reasons for a structural adjustment; a central government that, in comparison to the local government, accompanies the pursuit of cost containment interventions with structural adjustment, with improvements in equipment and with investments in human resources training”.
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Ciaschini, M., De Angelis, M., Monteriù, A., Pretaroli, R., Severini, F., Socci, C. (2016). The Role of ICT in the Italian Health Care System. In: Conti, M., Martínez Madrid, N., Seepold, R., Orcioni, S. (eds) Mobile Networks for Biometric Data Analysis. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 392. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39700-9_1
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