Idi Irccs: partnerships and venture capital to develop cutting-edge research

The challenge of technological innovation, AI and increasing IT and virtual complexity in healthcare: 83% of specialists and 76% of general practitioners believe that artificial intelligence will radically change healthcare in the next five years even if its adoption remains slowed down by the complexity of the tools and the lack of digital skills. According to a survey by Datanalysis 2025, in fact, the greatest concerns relate to the reliability of diagnoses (23%), the reduction of doctors' decision-making autonomy (21%) and the possible replacement of the figure of the doctor (20%).

The multifaceted nature of healthcare management therefore continues to grow, and the responses, according to Alessandro Zurzolo, Managing Director of IDI IRCCS, must be directed towards 'the overall simplification and implementation of the company's instruments at the service of the patient and scientific research. All this with a strengthening of professional training, which plays a prominent role in our planning'.

'We have inherited a heritage of organised knowledge,' he explains, 'and we have the responsibility of preserving and further enriching it, on the strength of the two thousand people who flock to our outpatient clinics every day, and of the heritage made up of millions of data reports, images, and histological samples. To this end, we have set up collaborations on a national and international level with other centres and universities, creating scientific projects with great prospects that we intend to bring to the market through partnerships and venture capital. We are also completing an investment in the new management system that will soon facilitate the activities of our counter and back-office operators and make the patient's journey smoother'.

On many aspects, especially in ancillary services to healthcare provision, Idi is simplifying the patient experience as much as possible. It has brought all CUP activities in-house, already selecting and hiring 17 young people whom we have specifically trained and another four are in the process of being hired.

'What we are today,' the delegated councillor concludes, 'is the result of the approach taken from the very beginning by the friars of the Immaculate Conception who arrived more than a century ago in the Crete Mountains, where the IDI IRCCS is now based in Rome. In fact, the presence of shepherds with skin diseases led the friars to observation, experimentation and preparation of remedies, and treatment: in fact, what in the following decades and up to today has become a virtuous circle between research, clinics and industry'.