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HEALTH

Where are the ‘best’ hospitals in Italy?

Italy’s healthcare system is said to be among the best in the world, but stark regional differences persist. Here’s where you’ll find the country’s most highly-rated hospitals.

Published: 3 March 2023 15:05 CET
Updated: 14 March 2023 09:51 CET
Man entering a hospital in Italy
Many of Italy's international residents already pay annual charges to use Italy's public healthcare system, but the cost could be about to increase sharply. Photo by Miguel MEDINA / AFP

The average standard of healthcare in Italy is fairly high: the country has been ranked among the nations with the best healthcare systems in the world in surveys published by the World Health Organisation, Bloomberg and Statista.

But not all of Italy’s hospitals – or regional healthcare systems – are rated equally. A new World’s Best Hospitals ranking from Newsweek and global data firm Statista has revealed which of Italy’s hospitals are seen as the best.

The study ranked Rome’s Policlinico Gemelli as the best hospital in the country for the third year in a row, followed by Ospedale Niguarda and Ospedale San Raffaele in Milan.

The top five was completed by Policlinico Sant’Orsola in Bologna and the Istituto Humanitas in Rozzano, just south of Milan.

Spots from six to ten are occupied by: Policlinico San Matteo in Pavia, Azienda Ospedaliera in Padua, Ospedale Borgo Trento in Verona, Ospedale Papa Giovanni II in Bergamo and Turin’s Presidio Ospedaliero Molinette.

READ ALSO: Five essential facts about Italy’s public healthcare system

But aside from Rome’s Policlinico Gemelli, no hospital from the centre or south of the country figured in the top ten, with the first ‘non-northern’ hospital – Florence’s Ospedale Careggi – ranking 13th.

In fact, only three southern hospitals made it into the nation’s top 50, with the first one – Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza in San Giovanni Rotondo, Puglia – coming in 33rd.

These results seem to once again confirm the stark imbalances in the quality of medical services offered across the country, with central and southern regions continuing to perform poorly compared to their northern counterparts. 

You can read more about the issue and its causes HERE. 

Shifting from a national outlook to an international one, Italian hospitals didn’t fare quite as well as could be hoped.

The top five Italian hospitals all figured among the best 100 hospitals in the world, though only Rome’s Policlinico Gemelli made it into the top 50 (it came in 38th, to be exact).

However, Italy still had a total of 13 hospitals included in the world’s top 250 list, which made it the third most-represented European country in the ranking after Germany (25) and France (16).

Statista assessed the performance of over 2,300 hospitals around the world, basing its ranking upon a combination of the following four data sources: the opinion of over 80,000 healthcare professionals, patient experience surveys following hospitalisation, publicly available hospital quality metrics, and patient perception questionnaires. 

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LEARNING ITALIAN

The key Italian vocabulary you’ll need for a doctor’s visit

Seeing a doctor can be a challenging experience if you’re new to the Italian healthcare system, but possibly even more so if your 'dottore' doesn't have a good command of English.

Published: 17 April 2024 12:16 CEST
The key Italian vocabulary you’ll need for a doctor’s visit

Seeing a doctor is usually seen as a fairly uncomplicated task but everything gets a little harder when you’re in a new country, and Italy is really no exception as its healthcare system can be fairly tricky to navigate at first.

Additionally, not all Italian doctors are competent and confident English speakers, which means that their vocabulary may not be enough to cover the full extent of medical terms and procedures involved in an ordinary visit and they may naturally switch to talking to you in their native tongue when asking questions or providing information. 

As such, having some handy vocabulary under your belt can be a big help when trying to bridge any language gaps during your first appointments.

Making an appointment

In order to get an appointment (visita) with a public general practitioner (medico di base), you must be registered with the Italian national healthcare system (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, or SSN) and hold an Italian health card (tessera sanitaria).

READ ALSO: Italian healthcare: Should you switch from public to private insurance?

Further, while in some countries you may call the local clinic (ambulatorio) and book an appointment with any doctor on duty, that is not how things usually work in Italy.

In order to see an Italian GP, you must be under the care of that particular doctor. Info on how to register with one of the professionals operating in the area covered by your local health authority (Azienda Sanitaria Locale, ASL) can be found here.

Doctor speaking on the phone

A doctor speaks on the phone while inside his office. Photo by Nicolas TUCAT / AFP

Once you’ve registered with a GP, you can go ahead and book your first appointment. You can generally do so via phone, email or, in some cases, online.

When booking by email or phone, you may be given an overview of the doctor’s office hours (orari di apertura) and asked what day (giorno) and time (ora) you’d like to schedule the appointment (fissare la visita). Should you need to reschedule the appointment later on, you could ask: Sarebbe possibile spostare la visita?

Remember: if you’re in need of an urgent appointment, you can ask to see a doctor from Italy’s Guardia Medica, a medical care centre that operates outside of GPs’ normal working hours and on weekends, or visit your local hospital’s ER (pronto soccorso).

Seeing your doctor

Though they provide patients with a set appointment time, Italian clinics tend to run a little late, so you may have to wait for your turn in the waiting room (sala d’attesa).

Also, new patients are usually handed a form (modulo) to fill out with general information about themselves and their overall health (stato di salute) just before their first appointment. 

Once you’re in their office (ufficio), your doctor (dottore for a man and dottoressa for a woman) will enquire about the reasons behind your visit. 

If you’re there for a routine checkup, you could say that you’re visiting for a simple controllo. But if you’re there for any type of health problem, you’ll likely be asked what your symptoms (sintomi) are. 

You may have fairly common symptoms – for instance, a cough (tosse), a sore throat (mal di gola), fever (febbre) or headache (mal di testa).

READ ALSO: Coughs, colds and flu: What to say and do if you fall sick in Italy

But if you don’t really know what you have or don’t exactly know how to describe it in Italian, don’t worry: you can just indicate where the pain is coming from by saying mi fa male followed by the part of your body that’s aching (stomach, or stomaco, abdomen, or addome, chest, or petto, etc.).

Doctor speaking with patient inside his office

A doctor speaks with one of his patients inside his office. Photo by PASCAL POCHARD-CASABIANCA / AFP

At this point, your doctor may ask you further questions on the type of pain you’re feeling – for instance, whether you have a throbbing (pulsante) or stabbing (lancinante) pain – and ask you to lie down (stendersi) or sit (sedersi) on their table (lettino) to perform a physical examination. 

Among other things, the doctor might measure your heart rate (battito cardiaco) and blood pressure (pressione sanguigna), look in your throat or ears with a torch, or listen to your heart or lungs with a stethoscope (stetoscopio).

Further tests and medicines

Depending on the outcome of the physical examination, your doctor may refer you to a specialist for further diagnostic exams and tests (esami diagnostici), including blood tests (esami del sangue), an MRI scan (risonanza magnetica), an ultrasound (ecografia) or an ECG (elettrocardiogramma). 

But if the source and nature of your health problem is already clear to your doctor, you’ll likely be given a prescription (ricetta) for the purchase of medicines (medicine) as well as some instructions to follow to achieve full recovery (completa guarigione).

READ ALSO: Why are medicines so expensive in Italy?

Medicines may come in the form of powder (in polvere), tablets (pastiglie or compresse), drops (gocce) or syrup (sciroppo).

Remember: Italian doctors tend to have fairly bad handwriting (locals often jokingly refer to it as ‘hieroglyphs’), so make sure you know exactly what you need to get at the pharmacy (farmacia) as well as how many times a day (volte) you need to take each medicine. 

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