The FIASO (Italian Federation of Healthcare Organizations and Hospitals) president, Giovanni Migliore, recently affirmed that “Artificial intelligence in healthcare is not a future promise; it is already among us”. This is confirmed by the over 40 operational solutions collected through the call for practice launched by the Federation to promote innovation useful for citizens. Reflecting on AI application in healthcare, a FIASO research reported that cultural resistance is not so common, because around 30 million Italians expect AI to improve the quality of care.
In healthcare, AI is approached as a lever for efficiency, as the case of Puglia Region demonstrated. In this southern, Italian region an algorithm analyses the consistency between diagnostic prescriptions and clinical guidelines. The result is that 40% of the prescribed tests were found to be inappropriate. The General Director of the Puglia Regional Strategic Agency for Health and Social Affairs explained that “this data shows that by improving the quality of prescriptions, we can significantly reduce waiting lists without the need for new resources”. Another example comes from the ASL Napoli 3 that helps to avoid “gaps” in planning, increasing efficiency by up to 20%. These experiences demonstrate how AI can already improve the organization and sustainability of the system today.
To promote the participation of startups, research centers, and companies, the FIASO has also launched an open innovation platform (NextH.ai) to gather new project ideas and accelerate solutions that are already mature. The selected proposals will be awarded in January 2026, following evaluation by the Observatory’s scientific committee. This will support the operationalization of AI, because according to experts it must not remain theoretical, and it must be integrated into real assistance processes, with widespread staff training and a culture of conscious innovation. To do this, AI calls for data. To support and regulate data gathering, in spring 2025 the Italian Government started working on a bill on artificial intelligence. The text is currently in its third reading in the Senate, after several amendments were introduced, including an amendment concerning health data. This amendment is intended to allow the secondary use of data for research, thanks also to AI tools or new data analysis methods that automate the construction of analytical models, while maintaining high security and privacy standards. This implies a growing attention and work on interoperability and reliability, real-time data. This is essential because most of biomedical research and health planning depend on data. In fact, without the possibility of reusing data collected for treatment, half of the research is blocked.
