Assolombarda, the association of companies in the metropolitan city of Milan and the provinces of Lodi, Monza, Brianza and Pavia, just launched Health Lombardy, a platform dedicated to promoting healthcare excellence in Lombardy and offering high-quality care services to citizens coming from other countries, both European and non-European. Created in collaboration with the Lombardy Life Sciences Cluster, the platform aims at showcasing the offer of accredited healthcare facilities in the region, both public and private, including the IRCCS Istituto Clinico Humanitas, the IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele and many others.
Health Lombardy is designed to provide international patients with a comprehensive service. This includes the listing of all healthcare facilities and their clinical specificities, as well as the support through the network of companies associated with Assolombarda, in order to guarantee a door-to-door experience to the patients. In addition, the platform offers tele-consultations and ehealth services to allow easier access to second opinions and a more informed choice of the treatment path. Furthermore, the platform showcases the best practices of Lombardy’s healthcare excellences, which often offer cutting-edge and unique treatments on the international scene. The users of the platform can make searches for specific treatments, equipements, districts, etc.
The healthcare system in Italy
According to Bloomberg, Italy ranks third in the world for health service efficiency, thanks to the quality of services, research and innovation of its facilities. This is particularly evident in Lombardy, where around 1.5 million patients are treated every year in 208 hospitals. The region boasts numerous university hospitals, research centers and institutes of excellence. Considering the competitiveness of prices compared to other countries, such as Germany and the USA, the Italian healthcare system emerges as a strategic sector and deserves to be promoted abroad.
Health Lombardy was precisely created to enhance this excellence and encourage the internationalization of the sector, increasing awareness of the treatment opportunities offered in Lombardy, among Italian and foreign patients.
“In Lombardy, more than other Italian regions, the solid alliance between public and private has given rise to high standards of care – stated the Director of Life Science of Assolombarda, Mr Cristian Ferraris -. It is no coincidence that our facilities are appreciated at a national and international level – proof of this is the placements in some international rankings, including Newsweek – and are increasingly popular destinations for carrying out highly complex medical procedures. Through our Health Lombardy platform we wish to contribute, in partnership with the Lombardy Life Sciences Cluster, to the valorisation of the healthcare offer in Lombardy: as we know, such attractiveness inevitably results in greater investments and research activities. Those two components make the regional health service increasingly solid, for the benefit of the whole community”.
Internationalization of the Italian healthcare system
According to the model proposed by Mr Ferraris, the internationalization of the healthcare system cannot be limited to the attraction of foreign patients, but must include three other crucial pillars: attracting clinical trials to promote cutting-edge research, attracting investments and companies to develop innovative products and services through technology transfer, and developing an advanced health technology assessment pathway in order to guarantee cutting-edge care. Those three pillars must be interconnected, creating a virtuous cycle that starts from research to patient treatment and returns to stimulate further research, making the healthcare system increasingly attractive, innovative and efficient.
Link to the platform: https://www.healthlombardy.eu/
