Which are the regions with the most deficiencies in the health system

Every year the Ministry of Health publishes a sort of ranking of health systems in the area. That is, it assigns a score to the health services provided in the Regions, thus verifying the functioning of health care at the territorial level. And in the last days of 2020 it published the grid for 2018. Emilia Romagna, Veneto and the Autonomous Province of Trento were the best in terms of essential levels of assistance, the so-called LEA, ie the indicators used to assess the quality of the health service.

Part of the new evaluation indicators used in the three main areas investigated were also used for this latter monitoring: prevention, hospital and district (i.e. territory). For each of these areas, different indicators were then provided which, added together, give a score to performance in each area. They range from waiting times to hospitalization rates to vaccination coverage. However, this new system is still experimental and will be fully operational only in two years.

So let’s see the latest available results, those relating to 2018. In all three areas, there were shortcomings in some Regions. 13 Regions / Autonomous Provinces have passed the exam and registered a positive score in all areas: these are Piedmont, Lombardy, the Autonomous Province of Trento, Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Liguria, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Umbria, Marche, Lazio, Abruzzo and Puglia. Instead, there are eight autonomous Regions / Provinces that have gone in the red at least in one area. The most problematic is the district one, for which at least six Regions and Pa are under the index (Valle d’Aosta, Pa Bolzano, Molise, Basilicata, Calabria and Sardinia). Following, with three insufficient Regions (Molise, Campania and Calabria) is the hospital one and finally we find that of prevention with two territories with negative scores (Pa Bolzano and Sicily).

According to the new method, a value ranging from 0 to 100 is therefore attributed to each of the three areas according to 88 indicators. A score over 60 is considered positive. It is a more precise mechanism to photograph the quality of health services in the Regions and Pa. And that does not allow the territories to pass the exam by compensating a bad score with a better one in other areas.

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