The Role of geography in the reorganization of the Italian National Health Service: Implementation of geographic information in the logistics and resilience of organizational structures.

Abstract

The study, carried out at the Local Healthcare Authority in Reggio Emilia, Italy, focused on required travel of its employees with reference to length of travel route, degree of coverage through local public transport, degree of overlapping travel (useful to assess the feasibility of car sharing initiatives) and plans for shift work. The goal was to identify main obstacles when attempting to improve the reliability and scalability of this type of analysis, so that it can be used for regular updates. It was found that, on the one hand, it is necessary to promptly identify changes in the staff structure due to turnover that particularly affects health practitioners, such as doctors and fixed-term employees, while, on the other it is mandatory to comply with the provisions of Italian Law according to which, mobility managers must draw up annual commuting plans with an analysis of the routes travelled. The results of this work are likely to have useful implications for the improvement of the logistics system and, in particular, for the resilience of healthcare organizations.