The concept of ‘collaborative health’ sees people and their ability to take action and collaborate as the main resource for strengthening the health and welfare system, and as a way of responding to current challenges in Italy.
This is the change of perspective contained within the “Care that changes” report, promoted by Nesta Italia and produced in collaboration with LAMA, Wemake, and with the support of Unicredit.
The demographic and epidemiological dynamics in Italy (with an aging population and the spread of chronic illnesses) are placing rapidly increasing demands on the health sector, and at the same time transforming people’s needs, which require greater continuity, personalisation and integration of services, and call for greater attention to the relational and “human” side of assistance. Furthermore, the constant increase in health inequality highlights the scale of the challenge in relation to the equity of prevention and treatment systems.
Collaborative health has been proposed as an innovative new paradigm, able to offer systemic solutions, not solely focusing on the transformation of services (new technologies, organisational models, etc.) but also on patient empowerment and community action.
The report maps out the Italian collaborative health initiatives in three key areas:
- App&Device, for experiences of empowerment and collaboration aided by technologies;
- People&Community, for innovations that leverage relationships, collaboration and communities;
- Open Care, for solutions based on co-planning and open innovation.
