The announcement by Stefano Bonaccini, President of the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces, regarding the agreement for the allocation of the 2020 National Health Fund is a significant signal for the future of the country and for the effectiveness of local services for citizens.
As President Bonaccini explains, the National Health Service for 2020 is being funded with over 116 billion euros, including plan objectives and earmarked funds. Today, over 113 billion euros have been distributed among the Regions, covering standard healthcare needs and performance-based incentives.
For 2020, the Regions have allocated a total of 113.360 billion euros, of which 113.069 billion euros are for standard needs and 291.648 million euros are for performance-based incentives, following the increase in the Fund by 2 billion euros as established by the 2019 Budget Law.
But how should these resources be invested? Could this truly be an opportunity to innovate and make our hospitals more modern, accessible, and efficient?
We believe so!
Our hospitals certainly need additional resources to bridge the gap that was dramatically highlighted during the peak of the Covid-19 emergency. However, we are also certain that to work better, technological updates to processes and assets are essential investments to make our already excellent medical and healthcare facilities even more efficient from both a technological and managerial standpoint.
This should be the starting point for rethinking certain processes, driving Italian healthcare towards modernization that will help control management costs of facilities and free up resources for research, medical and nursing staff, and patient care in clinics and hospitals.
We believe this is the right path to ensure that the funding turns into useful and productive investments for the future of our healthcare system. The risk, otherwise, is spending valuable resources on projects aimed at solving past problems using outdated methods, which, though necessary to address, will not have any concrete solutions without investing in the future. Such a grave mistake could impact the country’s GDP as significantly as a pandemic.
These months have changed the perception of healthcare as a whole; now we must ensure we meet our citizens’ expectations.
