Dossier n. 163/2008 [Abstract] Local Health Trusts in Emilia-Romagna: a synthesis of the 2005 and 2006 Mission reports

Since 2004 Local Health Trusts in Emilia-Romagna have to prepare each year the so called Mission report, together with the Annual financial balance (regional Law 29/2004). This document is aimed at reporting both economical and health outcomes related with the health objectives proposed by the Region and the local governments, so that periodical verifications of results reached by the Heath Trusts are possible.

The experimental phase of this demanding project started in the second half of 2004 with 5 pilot Health Trusts; it was later extended to all regional Local Health Trusts and in the last year also to Hospital Trusts and to the Rizzoli Research Hospital in Bologna.

Mission report is a yearly, compulsory, public, technical document, corresponding to a regional shared model. It presents many information, including a set of indicators that are common for all Health Trusts. The quantitative indicators are accompanied by detailed narrative descriptions of choices and actions implemented: the Health Trust talks of itself explaining its role in regional and local policies.

The aim of the report is to illustrate the outcomes of actions performed by the Health Trust and mostly to actively support the relationship between the Health Trust and its main institutional interlocutors: the Region and the Social and Healthcare Territorial Conferences (composed by all the mayors of the Municipalities of the area corresponding to a single Local Health Trust, usually a province). In such a way, these institutional subjects can verify the attainment of pre-defined goals and - if necessary - reactivate internal and external planning processes. On their side, Health Trusts use the Mission report also to communicate with other internal and external subjects (Third sector, Labor Unions, professionals, people in charge of clinical governance, members of patients’ associations, etc.).

The use of Mission reports at local level is more direct and already well developed; the use at regional level is more complex and requires an additional synthesis and presentation work. This volume represents a first attempt of this supplementary work.

The volume is divided in two sections. The first part includes a synthesis of the 2005 and 2006 reports, underlying the most representative aspects of each of the eleven Local Health Trusts of Emilia-Romagna. The structure of each report follows the model defined in the regional guidelines to allow a transversal reading. The second section is divided in two parts, to describe the reference context and the most meaningful elements of each Health Trust’s profile.

The volume is meant for a reader interested in the regional dimension of the experience; the reader can focus on each single Health Trust or on the same aspect in the various Trusts, and is helped in the reading of the original longer reports.