IN Italy there are more than 1 million people with dementia, of which about 700 thousand suffering from Alzheimer’s and over 900 thousand with mild cognitive impairment. Numbers that are destined to rise with the progressive aging of the population. Guaranteeing easy access to care for neurological patients already today, by relocating to the territory a part of healthcare that is traditionally provided in hospitals, must therefore be a priority. And with this goal, the SMART Care NEUROLOGY Project was born – drawn up by the SIN (Italian Society of Neurology) in collaboration with the SIMM (Italian Society of Leadership and Management in Medicine), coordinated by OVER Group and realized thanks to the unconditional contribution of Roche – which also proposes to implement tools to optimize the distribution of resources and expenses.
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There is a need for a reorganization of services for neurological patients
Currently, the care of patients with dementia “is entrusted to about 579 Centers for Cognitive Disorders and Dementias (CDCD), 537 Day Centers and 728 RSAs, equipped with very heterogeneous organizational models both in terms of composition (staff employed, presence of neuropsychologist, etc.) that for distribution on the national territory “, explained Gioacchino Tedeschi, of the University of Campania” Luigi Vanvitelli “, Director of the Neurology Unit of the AOU” Luigi Vanvitelli “of Naples and Past President of the Italian Society of Neurology . But it is a model that does not work, not for everyone at least: “The current socio-health organization is far from satisfying the clinical-assistance and even more social needs of these patients and their families, on which most of the management burdens fall. , especially in the most advanced stages of the disease. To accommodate and appropriately address patients and caregivers, even while waiting for possible new drugs capable of modifying the course of the disease, a path aimed at identifying and taking care of patients at an early stage should be envisaged, through a reorganization of services ” .
SMART, the project for “smart” and sustainable assistance
Chronic diseases affect over 24 million Italians, with a trend that grows with age. The aging of the population will only increase the share of chronically ill patients: a major challenge for the health system. SMART (acronym for “Solutions and Advanced Methods of Territorial Reorganization in Healthcare”) Care – NEUROLOGIA aims to meet this challenge in the field of neurological diseases. How? Aiming – explain the creators of the project – to define new strategies to improve the assistance to neurological patients, reorganizing the hospital-territorial care network to aim at an integration of care, which is extremely essential for pathologies such as headaches, cognitive-behavioral disorders, stroke, Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis. In accordance with the redesign of health advocated by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) which aims to strengthen local health.
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“Coordination between the various levels of care is becoming increasingly necessary, focusing on the patient’s needs in an efficient allocation of resources and expenditure”, explains Alfredo Berardelli of the University of Rome “Sapienza”, Director of UOC Neurology of the AOU Policlinico Umberto I of Rome and President of the Italian Society of Neurology. “It is with this spirit that the SMART Care NEUROLOGY Project was born, when, a couple of years ago, SIMM and SIN imagined an intervention for neurology, to devise an organizational model for a health system distributed also territorially, consistent with the best practical and able to coordinate all the subjects and structures involved. The goal – concludes Berardelli – is to position health services more appropriately in the place of greatest value, relocating a part of healthcare to neurological patients traditionally carried out in the hospital towards the territory, with a view to identifying the best care structure that guarantees maximum quality, optimization of resources and sustainability of the system and organizational appropriateness “.