The National Observatory on Health Status in the Italian Regions (Osservatorio Nazionale sulla Salute nelle Regioni Italiane) represents a cooperation among the Istituto di Igiene dell’Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, the Istituti di Igiene of other Italian universities and several national, regional and corporate public institutions (Ministero della Salute, Istat, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto Nazionale Tumori, Istituto Italiano di Medicina Sociale, Agenzia Italiana del Farmaco, Aziende Ospedaliere ed Aziende Sanitarie, Osservatori Epidemiologici Regionali, Agenzie Regionali e Provinciali di Sanità Pubblica, Assessorati Regionali e Provinciali alla Salute). This cooperative activity is multidisciplinary and involve around 230 public health care experts, clinicians, demographers, epidemiologists, mathematicians, statisticians and economists that, with different competencies, have as own scientific interests the individuals and collective health conditions and the promotion of its improvement.
The National Observatory on Health Status in the Italian Regions is composed by 21 regional and autonomous provincial sections with the aim:
- to collect comparable regional data coming from different sources;
- to monitor the health status in the Italian regions trough specific indicators characterized by scientific strictness and cognitive simplicity;
- to spread out public health care control tools trough out:
- annual reports;
- web pages;
- press conference;
- events aimed to regional level;
- events aimed to specific problems.
From a conceptual and methodological point of view the National Observatory on Health Status in the Italian Regions is connected with the European Observatory for the Health Care system maintaining its approaches and perspectives and it is part of the network of the European Public Health Observatories with the attempt to give to the policy makers, both politicians and technician, scientific strictness tools, politically objectives and neutrals. Moreover there is the aspiration to cooperate with every administration, public or private, central or regional, with institutional responsibility in the health care sector and with the aim to ensure the wellbeing of the citizens.
The main outcomeof the National Observatory on Health Status in the Italian Regions is the “RAPPORTO OSSERVASALUTE – Stato di salute e qualità dell’assistenza nelle Regioni Italiane” (Osservasalute Report – Health status and quality of the health assistance in the Italian regions). The Report adopts a comparative methodology analysis and indicators validated at international level. The indicators used have been chosen among those of the EUPHIN project (European Union Public Health Indicators) of the European Commission, moreover have been added other indicators built for specific aspects not considered in the EUPHIN project. Also at European level, the selection of the indicators represents a pilot experience, with the intention to create a methodological base to compare regions of different European countries and to have useful experiences to identify the situation of excellence ant to understand the mechanism that underlie it. The “Rapporto Osservasalute” has two main perspectives: the first is to give continuity to the initiative, developing comparison during the time and with other surveys concerning topic of interest; the second is to adopt a European approach to build a benchmarking activity for the health status and health care assistance in the European regions.