Investment 2: Territorial proximity health facilities

Inner Areas – 2. Territorial Proximity health facilities (Mission 5, Component 3, Investment 1)

The intervention aims at consolidating subsidized rural pharmacies as local health services.

This investment, complementary to European cohesion policy, will give immediate support to subsidized rural pharmacies that during the Covid-19 emergency, have been a fundamental point of reference for the local population.

By consolidating their role in providing health facilities, pharmacies can keep being a central element of community life, bringing healthcare as close as possible to citizens.

In detail, these pharmacies are expected to strengthen their role by: (i) taking part in the integrated home assistance service; (ii) providing second-level services, in accordance with diagnostic-therapeutic paths envisaged for specific pathologies; (iii) dispensing drugs that the patient is now forced to collect in the hospital; (iv) monitoring the patient with the Electronic Health Record and the Pharmaceutical Dossier.

The project aims at:

(i) Optimization of the effective medication dispensing also by implementing the “distribution on behalf” (DPC) operated by local pharmacies, even at the patient’s home, instead of the direct distribution (DD) carried out by hospitals.

Reorganization and implementation of the dispensing area and storage of drugs; improvement of the levels of monitoring of deadlines, revocations and missing medications.

(ii) Participation in chronic patients care, including home care projects, increasing the patient's adherence rate to pharmacological therapies and monitoring the correct use of drugs.

Interaction of rural pharmacies with the Electronic Health Record (EHR): priority is given to specialist training in patient care, including home care, and pharmacovigilance, technological, IT and logistical equipment (licenses for monitoring platforms, software, hardware, equipped workstations for teleconsultation, data consultation, EHR consultation).

(iii) Provision of first and second level services, also operated in the field of home care, providing diagnostic and therapeutic pathways for specific pathologies: the costs for the rental and/or purchase of telemedicine devices and blood and urine analyzers and related assistance/creation of reception areas (reserved spaces, specific furnishings, emergency devices) for the provision of telemedicine services, also at home for frail patients, for whom a reporting system will have to be used at a center identified in advance, preferably in agreement with hospitals or public facilities.

By December 2023, the investment has financed 500 rural pharmacies, with the objective of reaching additional 2000 rural pharmacies by June 2026, by consolidating their role in providing health facilities in municipalities, hamlets or settlements of less than 5000 inhabitants.

The investment is financed by Recovery and Resilience Plan with EUR 100 million.