Engaging with Institutions in the healthcare sector: Telos A&S at the conference promoted by the Association for Innovation in Italy
How can conflicts of interest be managed consciously and transparently when the constitutional right of all citizens to the safeguard of their health is at stake? And how can legitimate interests of market players, professional categories and citizens be represented to those decision-makers who have the power to define the rules that preside over the market?
Marco Sonsini of Telos A&S took part in the conference on “Healthcare: simplification, transparency and responsibility – a possible strategy to tackle corruption”, promoted by the Association for Innovation in Italy – think tank on Healthcare and the Public Administration, in cooperation with the Vice-Presidency of the Healthcare Committee of the Sicilian Regional Assembly and the support of AiSDeT (Italian Association of Digital Health and Telemedicine) and FIASO (Italian Federation of healthcare units and hospitals).
The conference was structured in three panels on transparency and the rule of law in the relations between private operators and the public healthcare service. Market operators (suppliers of the NHS, a business association, and a professional lobbyist) and representatives of healthcare units contributed to the first panel, followed by law enforcement officials who preside over prevention and repression of corruption (Anti-Corruption Authority, Court of Auditors, criminal Justice) and finally by two politicians, namely the Vice-President of Sicily, Prof. Gaetano Armao, and the Vice-President of the Healthcare Committee of the Sicilian Regional Assembly, Hon. Carmelo Pullara.
For Telos A&S this was yet another chance to engage in a dialogue on the meaning, goals and scope of lobbying as a profession, which is not about influencing administrative procedures aimed at authorising, admitting to reimbursement or purchasing products, but about bringing proposals to those Institutions that have the responsibility to regulate the market and discipline both the behaviour of private operators and the activity of Public Administrations. It was also a chance to restate our hope that a national legislation will soon come to legitimise (and discipline) our profession as a necessary component of open and transparent decision-making processes: one of the key tools to fight against corruption is to make sure that decisions taken by politicians are totally public, so that they can be effectively scrutinised by those who elected them to be their representatives.
This meeting took place at Villa Malfitano-Whitaker in Palermo.
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