Mariachiara Ceccio (Università degli studi di Messina)
Teresa Pintaudi (Università degli studi di Messina)
Francesco Bonanno (Università degli studi di Messina)
Filippo Cavallaro (Università degli studi di Messina)
The distance between what people need and the ability of the SSN to meet those needs, corresponds to a continuous pursuit, because the organization needs legislative time and this leads people to turn to inappropriate facilities or to look to the private sector.
In addition, technological innovation and scientific research ensure new opportunities to deal with diseases that lead to new outcomes on people’s health. We can speak about a “new generation of patients”.
The health needs of the people of 2024 have demands that were unthinkable even ten years ago.
The recent experience of Covid 19 led to an acceleration concerning all the themes directly related with the infection, prioritizing vaccine research over the treatment of the patient, the use of new technologies in health activities (telemedicine), the autonomous adaptation dealing with all diseases whose attention was, in that period, deemed deferrable.
The lengthening of the average life span, the possibility of survival with chronic and overlapping diseases, technological innovation that much has changed the way surgeons intervene, new types of drugs that face diseases that were incurable, are all vectors that lead physiotherapy to new problems.
To find a way to solve these problems we have to rely on:
– the analysis of the skills and the interventions that the physiotherapist has in his toolbox
– the analysis of the spaces the physiotherapist is asked to occupy
– the evaluation of the institutional administrative role of OFIs
– the criteria of the continuous update about the analysis on the stratification of the risk profile of social and health care fragility
New health needs already involved physiotherapists who adapted, during the pandemic period, therapeutic interventions to the conditioning filters of DPI, the management of patients/clients/users at a distance with telemedicine, the delayed caregiving dictated by isolation and the acquisition of the skills needed to guide the functional recovery of those affected by SARS-COV-2. At the same time, the SSN moved away from guaranteeing the Essential Levels of Care, demonstrating an inability to manage RSA, helping to lengthen the waiting lists.
Meanwhile, chronic non-communicable diseases and oncological diseases required preventive attention, along with aging, sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, and population stress, in order to adapt one’s lifestyle and/or expectations to the health condition.
From the experience gained during the pandemic period, new challenges arise:
– How to adapt care in PNRR-funded Community Homes with PNNR funds
– Which spaces in the Operations Center can be used for non-emergency medical care
– What activities in the Territorial Operations Centers can be implemented for the coordination of the patient care
– How to collaborate in the territory with the family and community nurse in addition to the general practitioner or pediatrician
– What roles need to be defined in the Continuity of Care Unit for taking care of the complex cases in the district mobile team
– What kind of presence should be provided in the Community Hospital , the Palliative Care Network (from the early phase of chronic-degenerative diseases to the terminal phase), and the Family Consultatory (service for the health of minors, women, couples, and families).
The complexity of new prevention, treatment and rehabilitation needs dictated by the changing conditions of life and health as well as the innovation of proposed treatments, will respond to a new generation of patients with a new generation of physical therapists.
