Primary care before and after the COVID-19 emergency. From "Case della Salute" to "Case della Comunità": A possible reform?

ABSTRACT

The Covid-19 pandemic emergency has further highlighted the centrality of primary care in health systems, fostering a new reform process towards new integrated community services called 'Case della Comunità'. In the path dependency logic, the new proposal is part of regionalized reform paths, centered on the Case della Salute. The study analyzes three regional experiences (Piemonte, Marche, Puglia), investigating the continuity or fracture paths between implemented and announced reforms. The results highlight the heterogeneity in the implementation processes of the Case della Salute at regional level, both in terms of terminology and in the characteristics of the services, with marked criticalities in the integration paths of primary care with the rest of the community services, confirming the criticality in the transposition and implementation at the regional level of national policies. © 2021 Franco Angeli Edizioni. All rights reserved.