Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Jul 27;11(15):2147.
doi: 10.3390/healthcare11152147.

Primary Care of the (Near) Future: Exploring the Contribution of Digitalization and Remote Care Technologies through a Case Study

Federico Pennestrì  1 , Giuseppe Banfi  1   2
Affiliations

Primary Care of the (Near) Future: Exploring the Contribution of Digitalization and Remote Care Technologies through a Case Study

Federico Pennestrì et al. Healthcare (Basel). .

Abstract

The Italian Government planned to invest €15 billion of European funds on National Health Service digitalization and primary care enhancement. The critical burden brought by the pandemic upon hospital care mean these investments could no longer be delayed, considering the extraordinary backlogs of many treatments and the ordinary gaps of fragmented long-term care, in Italy and abroad. National guidelines have been published to standardize interventions across the Italian regions, and telemedicine is frequently mentioned as a key innovation to achieve both goals. The professional resources needed to run the facilities introduced in primary care are defined with great precision, but no details are given on how digitalization and remote care technologies must be implemented in this context. Building on this policy case, this paper focuses on what contribution digitalization and telemedicine can offer to specific primary care innovations, drawing from implemented technology-driven policies which may support the effective stratification, prevention and management of chronic patient needs, including anticipatory healthcare, population health management, adjusted clinical groups, chronic care management, quality and outcomes frameworks, patient-reported outcomes and patient-reported experience. All these policies can benefit significantly from digitalization and remote care technology, provided that some risks and limitations are considered by design.

Keywords: NextGeneration EU; PNRR; algorithms; artificial intelligence; big data; informatics; primary care; telemedicine.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Population health management. Four-level model adopted by Kaiser Permanente, elaborated by the authors from [33] (p. 14).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Fragmented care representation. Elaborated by the authors from [42].
Figure 3
Figure 3
Digitally integrated patient management and remote care technology provision. Elaborated by the authors. See acknowledgements for graphic icons credit.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Model scalability. Elaborated by the authors. See acknowledgements for graphic icons credit.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

  • Beyond the black stump: rapid reviews of health research issues affecting regional, rural and remote Australia.
    Osborne SR, Alston LV, Bolton KA, Whelan J, Reeve E, Wong Shee A, Browne J, Walker T, Versace VL, Allender S, Nichols M, Backholer K, Goodwin N, Lewis S, Dalton H, Prael G, Curtin M, Brooks R, Verdon S, Crockett J, Hodgins G, Walsh S, Lyle DM, Thompson SC, Browne LJ, Knight S, Pit SW, Jones M, Gillam MH, Leach MJ, Gonzalez-Chica DA, Muyambi K, Eshetie T, Tran K, May E, Lieschke G, Parker V, Smith A, Hayes C, Dunlop AJ, Rajappa H, White R, Oakley P, Holliday S. Osborne SR, et al. Med J Aust. 2020 Dec;213 Suppl 11:S3-S32.e1. doi: 10.5694/mja2.50881. Med J Aust. 2020. PMID: 33314144
  • Public health digitalization in Europe.
    Odone A, Buttigieg S, Ricciardi W, Azzopardi-Muscat N, Staines A. Odone A, et al. Eur J Public Health. 2019 Oct 1;29(Supplement_3):28-35. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckz161. Eur J Public Health. 2019. PMID: 31738441 Free PMC article.
  • The future of Cochrane Neonatal.
    Soll RF, Ovelman C, McGuire W. Soll RF, et al. Early Hum Dev. 2020 Nov;150:105191. doi: 10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2020.105191. Epub 2020 Sep 12. Early Hum Dev. 2020. PMID: 33036834
  • Tuberculosis.
    Bloom BR, Atun R, Cohen T, Dye C, Fraser H, Gomez GB, Knight G, Murray M, Nardell E, Rubin E, Salomon J, Vassall A, Volchenkov G, White R, Wilson D, Yadav P. Bloom BR, et al. In: Holmes KK, Bertozzi S, Bloom BR, Jha P, editors. Major Infectious Diseases. 3rd edition. Washington (DC): The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank; 2017 Nov 3. Chapter 11. In: Holmes KK, Bertozzi S, Bloom BR, Jha P, editors. Major Infectious Diseases. 3rd edition. Washington (DC): The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank; 2017 Nov 3. Chapter 11. PMID: 30212088 Free Books & Documents. Review.
  • Evidence Brief: The Quality of Care Provided by Advanced Practice Nurses [Internet].
    McCleery E, Christensen V, Peterson K, Humphrey L, Helfand M. McCleery E, et al. Washington (DC): Department of Veterans Affairs (US); 2014 Sep. Washington (DC): Department of Veterans Affairs (US); 2014 Sep. PMID: 27606392 Free Books & Documents. Review.
See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. European Commission. [(accessed on 2 June 2023)]. Available online: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/eu-budget/eu-borrower-i....
    1. Camera dei Deputati. [(accessed on 2 June 2023)]. Available online: https://www.camera.it/temiap/2021/06/25/OCD177-4986.pdf.
    1. Ministero della Salute. [(accessed on 2 June 2023)]; Available online: https://www.salute.gov.it/imgs/C_17_pubblicazioni_2584_allegato.pdf.
    1. Ministero della Salute. [(accessed on 2 June 2023)]; Available online: https://www.salute.gov.it/resources/static/primopiano/390/Casa_salute_In....
    1. Agenzia Regionale di Sanità Toscana. [(accessed on 2 June 2023)]. Available online: https://www.ars.toscana.it/images/pubblicazioni/Collana_ARS/2018/documen....

LinkOut - more resources

  NODES
innovation 2
INTERN 3
twitter 2