How Reggio Emilia Local Health Authority used the power of data driven healthcare organisation management to fight the pandemic in Italy
REGGIO EMILIA LOCAL HEALTH AUTHORITY
How Reggio Emilia Local Health Authority used the power of data driven healthcare organisation management to fight the pandemic in Italy
Houston , we have a problem ,” is the memorable famous quote from the Apollo 13 space flight which resonated with Marco Foracchia CIO of Reggio Emilia Local Health Authority when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Italy .
The former biomedical engineer is a man who likes a plan , but 13 years after joining the public healthcare authority he had to become flexible to the challenges posed by the pandemic which ripped through the Emilia-Romagna region . But like the astronauts , who triumphed over adversity , Foracchia led his ICT team with a vision and the help of a data-driven approach .
Foracchia compared the IT challenge faced by Reggio Emilia Local Health Authority , to the ‘ square peg in a round hole ’ scene from the Apollo 13 movie . Like the astronauts , his team focused on the problem in hand to reach their life or death goal . Foracchia stretched the intended use of most software systems to adapt to the pandemic scenario in order to properly manage the new types of data , gather and distribute all the information necessary for the top management to fight COVID- 19 . A winning choice was the adoption of population analytics to monitor the spread of COVID-19 among the one million population and treat people at home via telemedicine .
Marco Foracchia , Chief Information
Officer
106 June 2021