Veneto is the top region in healthcare, Calabria is last, but the gap is narrowing

The best performing region in healthcare, Veneto, reaches a maximum performance of 55% of the maximum theoretically achievable, while Calabria, last in the ranking, stands at 23%. The distance from the optimal levels reflects a growing expectation of stakeholders who require increasingly higher standards; if the satisfaction of the latter for the best results recorded at the regional level had been considered "full", the best Performance (of Veneto) would stand at 69% of the maximum.

This is revealed by the XIII edition of the study on Regional Performance, which analyses the opportunities for health protection offered to citizens in the various Italian regions, developed by Crea Sanità - Centre for Applied Economic Research in Healthcare - of the University of Rome "Tor Vergata", which will be presented in Rome on 2 July.

The study, conducted with the contribution of a panel of 107 stakeholders of the National Health Service, introduced important innovations and highlighted significant results by combining for the first time the Essential Levels of Care to measure the universality and equity of the National Health Service with citizen satisfaction and quality of life in the different Italian regions.

“The results - explains Crea Sanità, anticipating some of the study's findings - show a complex picture, characterized by an increase in stakeholder expectations, and citizens in particular, and by a positive correlation between the performance of health services and the level of citizen satisfaction; furthermore, a positive, but less strong, correlation between performance and perceived quality of life”.

In the period 2019-2024, however, an improvement in the overall performance index was recorded, and the analyses also revealed that the gap between the best performing Regions and the least performing ones is decreasing, this is mainly attributable to the fact that the improvements have particularly affected the Regions of Southern Italy and Central Italy.