Oncology: more than half the hospitals are without territorial support
Too many delays on community homes and hospitals in the NRP: invest also in digitisation and develop multi-professional teams
Key points
Promoting an organic and continuous vision of the oncological pathway; extending and replicating organisational models that already work; reducing territorial variability through coherent regional policies; making digitalisation, telemedicine and home care structural.
These are the four points that, according to us oncologists at CIPOMO, can really speed up the integration of hospital and territory and ensure a more solid continuity of care for patients.
The delays accumulated by community houses and hospitals
These priorities were at the heart of our CIPOMO Day 2025, which took place on 21 November and which once again highlighted the gap between the planning envisaged by Ministerial Decree 77 and the actual operation of territorial services. The Agenas data show this clearly: just over 300 fully functioning Community Hospitals out of more than 1,200 planned, less than a third of the Community Hospitals actually active, and about 60 per cent of the Territorial Operations Centres operational. This means that more than half of the Italian hospitals continue to move without adequate territorial support, with concrete effects on the quality and safety of care.
During the day, we reiterated how demographic change, the increase in the elderly population, and the growing chronicity of the oncological disease require different care models from the traditional ones. Follow-up, toxicity management, support therapies: many of these interventions could be guaranteed in the new territorial settings envisaged by Ministerial Decree 77, freeing up hospital resources and improving patients' quality of life. For this to happen, however, a truly functioning, interoperable network capable of dialogue with general medicine is needed.
The opportunities offered by digital and more flexible therapies
Oncology care today is taking place less and less within hospital walls and more and more in outpatient, territorial and home settings. The new oral and subcutaneous therapies allow more flexible organisation, while digital tools and telemedicine - still too little used - could simplify coordination between specialists and general medicine, reduce patient travel and improve the exchange of information between professionals.
