Improving the US healthcare system: Lessons from Italy

The United States healthcare system is of crucial importance in today's economy. While many plausible solutions have been suggested to aid in the reduction of climbing costs, no clear answer exists. Comparing the US system with that of another country provides the opportunity to highlight assets, flaws, and variances that may otherwise be overlooked. Italy was ranked second in a 2000 health systems study by the World Health Organization (the most recent ranking available), while the US was ranked 37th. Thus, the potential exists to identify lessons for the US from the Italian healthcare system. We conduct a quantitative gap analysis of US and Italian healthcare system statistics. Publicly available data were used, through careful searches of online databases and websites, academic journals, healthcare literature, and government publications. Specific areas of interest in the gap analysis are the social impact of each country's healthcare system, the importance or obsolescence of information technology, and user satisfaction versus expenditure. Our results underline strengths and weaknesses of the United States healthcare system, which may be useful in predicting and preparing for the future.