Performance and expenditure in Italian public healthcare organizations: does expenditure influence performance?

This paper analyses the effect of expenditure on the performance of Italian healthcare organizations. The authors looked at variations in spending and performance measures over 12 years across Italy. Their results show an improvement in performance over time, regardless of changes in total expenditure. This paper provides empirical evidence that performance in Italian public healthcare organizations is only marginally influenced by changes in public spending on healthcare. IMPACT Simply increasing public spending does not necessarily result in improved service performance. This paper looks at the Italian healthcare sector and shows that policy-makers need to pay more attention to the other variables that affect healthcare performance if they want to see improvements. The design and regulation of the healthcare system at both national and regional levels and the way healthcare organizations are actually managed must be looked at if any change in spending is proposed.