Italy e-health overview
The main drive behind Italy’s adoption of a national e-health programme has been modernisation of its healthcare system and curbing its national debt.
To support reform of the Italian health service a national healthcare information infrastructure is being developed, providing a nationwide system to collect performance and cost data, and provide a more efficient clearing system for payments.
Meanwhile Italy’s regions have pushed ahead with their own e-health projects, often with a clearer clinical focus.
Since 2004, these two developments have converged in the country’s new Electronic Health programme.
A decade of reformThe Italian health service, the Sistema Sanitario Nazionale (SSN), is undergoing major structural reforms, which the national healthcare information programme is designed to support. 
Italy's National Electronic Health ProgrammeLaunched in 2004, Italy’s Electronic Health programme aims to build on existing national health IT programmes, such as NSIS and Mattoni, together with regional clinical e-health initiatives and EU e-health projects. 
Italy's New Health Information SystemIn February 2001, the Ministry of Health and the Conference of Regions, 'Conferenza Stato Regioni', agreed on the joint development and operation of the New Health Information System (NSIS). |
