Why Italy

Italy is the 4th largest market in Europe for medical devices, has approximately 1,100 hospitals and 4,500 companies (2,500 manufacturers and 2,000 distributors and service providers)

 

Italy is also the 7th largest market for medical devices in the world.

 

Consumption of medical equipment and supplies was valued at Euro 11.6 billion in 2022.

 

Despite a strong presence of manufacturers in certain sectors, the overall medical device market remains reliant on imported goods, the value of which was Euro 9.3 billion in 2022.

 

There were 1,107 hospitals in Italy in 2022. 

995 were either “Public Hospitals” (507) or “Accredited Private Hospitals” (488) within the National Health Service (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale – SSN), while 112 were “Not-Accredited Private Hospitals” outside the SSN.

 

The latest available data (2022) show that total health care expenditure stood at Euro 167.7 billion (Euro 136.8 billion in public expenditure and Euro 30.9 billion in private expenditure) and 78.6% of this health spending was funded by public sources, above the average of 73.4% in OECD countries. The reminder 21.4% was made of “out-of-pocket payments” (17%) and “voluntary health insurance” (4.4%). As a matter of fact, the public sector was the main source of health funding in all OECD countries, except Chile, the United States and Mexico.





Italy spent 6.2% of GDP on health in 2022, slightly less than the OECD average of 6.9% and the Europe average of 6.8%. Spending per person was also slightly lower than the OECD average. The United States (16.5%), France (10.5%) and Switzerland (9.7%) had high shares compared with an average of 6.9% across OECD countries.

 

There were 4.1 physicians per thousand population in Italy (above OECD average of 3.3 in 2009) and there has been rapid growth in the availability of diagnostic technologies such as computed tomography (CT) scanners and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) units in Italy in the last 10 years. In 2022, the number of MRIs was 26.4 per million population (well above the OECD average of 14.5), and the number of CT scanners stood at 33.2 per million population (above the OECD average of 24.8).