Healthcare Regionalisation and Patients Mobility: the Challenges for a Sustainable Italian Health Service

Patients mobility represents one of the most important issues which the Italian Health Service, based on the typical solidarity principles of the Beveridgean model dating from 1978, is required to address today. The patients mobility issue began to emerge in Italy with the 1992 reform that assigned the Regions with the responsibility of safeguarding the population health, as well as being responsible for maintaning a balanced financial position. The article highlights the existence of a structural asymmetry among the regional health systems by analysing the flows of patients among the Regions. This scenario needs to be governed according to a national perspective in relation to the serious financial difficulties experienced by the Regions of South Italy, in order to avoid putting at risk the economic sustainability of the whole system, as well as the ability to provide services which are qualitatively and quantitatively adequate for the entire Italian population.