Chapter 2

the patient/citizen and therefore a broader range of choices, although equity problems
certainly do exist. People who choose to go abroad for medical treatment bypass internal
priority procedures, while those who cannot afford the additional costs of treatment
abroad have relatively reduced access to medical care.
In order to confirm the evolution of the European dimension on the subject, we wish to refer
to the Europe for Patients Project (2004), which concentrates on the development of networks
in order to overcome information asymmetry, with the final aim of improving quality.
Returning to the Italian case, Donia Sofio and Gabellini have noticed that intra-European
health care mobility is considered absolutely marginal in Regional evaluations, whereas it
might represent for many of them an instrument to develop positive competitiveness
amongst health care providers.
There is an exception, particularly in the Veneto region: a case study has been developed
in this region, which is perhaps the most significant one both on a national and on a
European level.
Veneto is one of the few Italian Regions (the others are Emilia Romagna, Friuli Venezia
Giulia and the Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano) that can boast of a credit
balance in the financial compensation of international health care mobility, also thanks to
a special organisation of services for foreign patients.
We might “provokingly” conclude that the data on international mobility could represent
a good conclusive test to demonstrate the true quality of Italian Regional health care services.
We wish to conclude by referring once more to the matter of indirect contributions of
health care system to economic development.
The attention of industries towards Health Services is not a novelty (see for example the
so-called Health Industry Model: Di Tommaso, Schweitzer, L’Industria n.s. 2000); both
Confindustria and the Meridiano Project by Ambrosetti Study have recently proposed the
subject once again. Estimates of value-added (direct and induced) attributable to the
health care sector have been provided; with health expenditure (in a wider sense, costs)
approximately equal to 8,5% of GDP, the value-added produced is between 11% and
12% of GDP; that is, the ranking of the sector is third or fourth among all the sectors of
activity.
Moreover, there is no doubt that in addition to being an important production sector, relatively
(both positively and negatively) subject to global competition, the health care
system offers important contributions in the fields of research, social cohesion, development
of human capital, etc.
We believe that study of this important area of benefits has yet to be fully developed.
In chapter 5.3, Mennini, Polistena, Ratti and Spandonaro have sketched the profile of the
principal industrial sectors linked to the health care sector (namely pharmaceutical and
medical devices) in their conviction that the subject of industrial development and that of
health care expenditure containment should be studied in close interrelation.
In fact, the correlation between trade exchange balance and average firm dimension is
impressive. This reminds us that firms have to be able to grow in order to become competitive
and therefore contribute to the welfare of the country.
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CEIS Health Report 2006