ROME (ITALPRESS) – A great challenge for the future of health, the Think Tank “The Health I’d Like: What Path for the Health Care of the Future,” an event, now in its second edition, held these days in Rome, at the Cardinal Colonna Gallery. A discussion among top experts from the institutional world of health with the intervention, first and foremost, of the Minister of Health, Orazio Schillaci, followed by Alessio Butti, Undersecretary of State to the Presidency of the Council with responsibility for Innovation, Francesco Zaffini, President 10th Commission on Social Affairs, Health, Public and Private Labor, Social Security – Senate of the Republic and Gian Marco Centinaio, Vice-President of the Senate of the Republic, along with various stakeholders in health, the health system at the national level. Actors involved in Italian health care – scientific societies, clinical professionals, education and others – discussed the knowledge of the medical world to ensure a better quality of care for citizens. The goal is to strengthen the National Health Service, networking among the different actors involved and consolidating the territorial set-up to give birth to a new model of healthcare with the support of digitalization. A proximity healthcare, which also reaches the home.Prevention is a necessary investment to promote healthy and active aging throughout life and to give sustainability to the National Health Service. It is the only real pursuable strategy on which the government is strongly committed even in international fora, considering that Italy already has to deal with an increasingly elderly Italian population to care for. In this path are the results that are being consolidated on the level of innovation with PNRR investments to strengthen proximity and territorial health care and for the digitization of the National Health Service. In particular, telemedicine, the Electronic Health Record and the use of artificial intelligence in health care form the basis of the work being done to strengthen these tools that are already revolutionary and are changing the way people approach health care, to deliver health care and to relate to physicians. This is an epochal change that involves everyone, from health care providers to citizens, and has now begun to become part of our daily lives. In this sense, the Think Tank day provided a comprehensive view on health care, investment, and citizen health protection. Policy interfaced with those who work in the world of health on a daily basis, acquiring information and creating a network among stakeholders, such as, for example, AGENAS, AIFA, Farmindustria, Confindustria and the Professional Associations, to offer a new model of health care.Among the issues addressed were the brain drain and the possibility today to become aware almost in real time of innovative technologies that can find immediate application. The fact that policy, as revealed at the Think Tank, immediately grasped the importance of developing new technologies is a crucial step forward. This may allow young people to stay in Italy. Human resources and intellects that remain on the ground will help develop technologies in our country in a way that was not the case in the past. Excellence in medicine also means excellence in research and development. “The day of discussion on the present and, above all, the future of our health care system, as part of the Think Tank held these days in Rome, was an opportunity to reaffirm the commitment on the part of the Ministry of Health to revitalize the National Health Service. During this period, we have laid the groundwork to resolve and overcome many long-standing issues affecting public health care. Resources for the National Health Fund have increased, and from January the spending cap on hiring health personnel will be lifted. We are working on the next budget law with the clear goal of finalizing resources to hire more staff and, above all, to better pay the workers who remain in the National Health Service. To ensure the best possible care for citizens, the decree to cut waiting lists recently became law. With an eye to the future, prevention and innovation are the strategic priorities to make the National Health Service increasingly modern, equitable and sustainable,” said Orazio Schillaci, Minister of Health. “We are working hard on the digitization of health services because we believe that speeding up the response to the patient is fundamental. In this way, thanks to technology, we can also improve the efficiency of care and treatment and the effectiveness of the service. For example, on the efficiency of care and treatment we insist a lot, not only on virtual hospitals, which would relieve hospitals that are overcrowded or emergency rooms, but would also allow patients to be able to be seen and treated while in the comfort of their own homes. Culturally, too, this is certainly an achievement. The Electronic Health Record is based solely on the technological approach and the enhancement of data. With the distinction between administrative data, health data and clinical data we can finally understand how to intervene, through the alert system, when a patient’s screening shows levels that are altered. Immediately the physician remotely verifies, checks, intervenes and also adjusts the treatment. This is the key point. The theme is that of telesurgery, so being able to intervene on a patient who is hospitalized in Milan from New York is fundamental, and to do this we need to equip ourselves with important connectivity and especially 5G,” explained Alessio Butti, Undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council with responsibility for technological innovation. “Prevention, as Rita Levi-Montalcini has argued on several occasions, is aimed at giving more life to days and not more days to life. Prevention therefore is fundamental for the patient; the patient must be well informed, and here prevention is also and above all communication. If the patient is calm, if the patient is well educated about what are the prevention modalities they can approach they can really have their lives saved. And this is the goal of Minister Orazio Schillaci, who wants to make a health care closer to the citizen, and to make it closer to the citizen, the citizen has to be calm, has to start trusting the health care system. Prevention is also important by using new technologies, and here technological innovation, robotics, artificial intelligence is fundamental as the operational arm of prevention, for a medicine that is more and more precision and is personalized, because medicine is not only treatment but it is above all prevention, before we get to where we cannot have a real cure for the disease,” pointed out Maria Rosaria Campitiello, Head of the Department of Prevention, Research and Health Emergencies of the Ministry of Health.”One of the goals that we set out to achieve this year is the definition of a national health plan that connects with all the measures that have already been introduced over the past two years, first and foremost the waiting list decree, where we finally have a structuring of the system in such a way that, once it is in place, will allow us to greatly reduce waiting lists and give patients the possibility-thanks to public-private integration-of not having to wait when they need to access a service. The decree provides monitoring and incentives to use services at the territorial, outpatient and home levels. The role of the physician, including the general practitioner, is integrated with specialists, mainly because the goal is to ensure that it is not the patient who has to move but, on the contrary, can access services in the territory of residence. Another fundamental and diriment aspect is that concerning health personnel. A very important three-year recruitment plan of social-health personnel within the health system is being planned, accompanied also by facilities that can allow more affordable remuneration to attract health personnel back into the NHS,” commented Francesco Saverio Mennini, Head of the Department of Planning, Medical Devices, Drugs and Policies in Favor of the NHS of the Ministry of Health.”We will establish a scientific committee of experts, which can, as already done for the ‘Land of the Fires,’ have a ‘One Health’ approach to health, activating specific prevention programs. An autonomous purely scientific approach that is immune from any kind of influences. Through an interdisciplinary and collaborative method, we can address current and future challenges, identify best practices and promote positive change. We strive to collaborate for prevention and public health, and to develop effective strategies to address emerging challenges. We pool our knowledge, experiences, and ideas in order to build a healthier and more prosperous future for all.Preventive medicine is a fundamental approach to preserving health and preventing disease. Through interventions aimed at identifying and addressing risk factors, preventive medicine seeks to reduce the incidence of chronic diseases and improve people’s quality of life. This approach is based on the importance of primary prevention, which includes the promotion of healthy lifestyles, vaccination, screening and early detection of diseases,” said Antonio Giordano, president Sbarro Institute and professor at Temple University USA.The event was organized by the Business Unit “Institutional&Advice” of Summeet Srl, a leading medical-scientific training company operating in Italy since 2009.
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(ITALPRESS).
