Cardiovascular disease: an economical perspective

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases represent a relevant problem worldwide. Data from World Health Organization (W.H.O.) demonstrate that they are one of the principle causes of death: 30% of all losses of human life throughout the world are due to heart diseases. Such data buries a substantial economic cost considering both the direct component, first of all the national health expense, and the indirect part, such as absenteeism rate, productivity loss, quality of life and, more generally, social costs. The future scenario pictured by the W.H.O. reveals a negative trend due to an increasing in the rate of morbidity and mortality especially in Emerging Countries. One of the solution to stem the costs - economic and not - connected to cardiovascular diseases is to empower the prevention activities overall the actions of primary prevention. This require a change in the traditional patient-physician relationship management model to get to an organizational model centred on patient and based on a proactive approach. In this perspective in the paper will be analysed the principal changes that occurred in the Italian national healthcare system and in particular the strategic plans and actions in theme of cardiovascular prevention.