The 116117 Experience in the Veneto Region: Rethinking Access to Care for Service Transformation

The 116117 project in the Veneto Region represents one of Italy’s most advanced initiatives in redesigning access and care pathways within community healthcare.Implemented as an organizational and digital infrastructure, 116117 integrates health, social, and informational services, ensuring equitable, traceable, and consistent access to care. The model is based on two regional operation centers supported by artificial intelligence and interoperable digital systems, enabling intelligent and proportionate management of citizens’ needs, with a guaranteed and traceable care pathway. The approach combines technological centralization with the centralization and explicit management of knowledge, ensuring coordinated, timely, and context-sensitive – yet always certain – responses. Pilot results show high user satisfaction and growing operational efficiency.However, the initiative poses significant challenges for local health authorities (AULSS), which must realign processes, data flows, and organizational models with regional standards. The 116117 system thus stands as a strategic lever for change management and process innovation, fostering a new organizational culture grounded in integration, shared responsibility, and continuity of care.

Keywords: 116117; access; care pathway; community health; change management; process innovation

Massimo Annicchiarico, Silvia Baldan, Michela Bobini, Mario Del Vecchio, Luigi Preti, Il caso del 116117 in Regione Veneto: ridisegnare l’accesso ai servizi per trasformare la sanità territoriale nei contesti aziendali in "MECOSAN" 132/2024, pp 215-231, DOI: 10.3280/mesa2024-132oa21291