Evaluating the effectiveness of the "Individual Assistance Plan" for Italian chronic patients

The aim of this work is the evaluation of a relatively new intervention for chronic patients in Italy, namely the PAI, i.e., "Piano Assistenziale Individuale" (Individual Care Plan). It is a service based on the paradigm of the personalised medicine, which should optimize several aspects of the individual care, such as patients' compliance to therapy, ease of access to care delivery, and a tighter monitoring of the patient's status on the long run. The expected outcomes from the PAI introduction are both the improvement of the patients' status and reduction of costs for the care provider. A case-control study has been performed, involving more than 20000 patients, and preliminary results seem to confirm the effectiveness of the new service, in particular by reducing patients' access to hospital and emergency room.