{"id":49650,"date":"2026-05-16T08:38:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T06:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magictowns.it\/?post_type=podcast&p=49650"},"modified":"2026-05-16T08:40:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T06:40:06","slug":"top-regions-for-public-healthcare-in-italy","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/magictowns.it\/fr\/podcast\/top-regions-for-public-healthcare-in-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Regions for Public Healthcare in Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anna:<\/strong> Luca, before we start, I have a quick question. So if you had to bet on which Italian region has the best public healthcare, which would you pick?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Um, well, first of all, I know the answer, so it’s a bit unfair. But if I did have to guess what most people would guess, I would say Lombardy, you know, the area around Milan with all those famous teaching hospitals. And some of the people might say Emilia-Romagna, the area around Bologna<\/a>, which has one of Europe’s oldest medical schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> But you don’t think that’s the answer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> No, I know that’s not the answer, and I actually think the real — I think the real answer would surprise people, but we’re gonna hold it for the end. In the meantime, write down your guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Writing it down. Okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> So, what is yours?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Um, [00:01:00] Lombardia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Okay, we shall see. I would have said Emilia-Romagna five years ago, and now I would answer differently, but we’ll get back to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Mm-hmm. So walk me through why this analysis exists at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> So we update the healthcare rankings for Italy in the Town Explorer roughly once a year. People that follow us know that we cover, uh, about two thousand Italian towns in the Town Explorer. And, um, in the healthcare section, we have a number for every town, but the most recent data was from two thousand and twenty-two, and, uh, we wanted to spruce it up for twenty twenty-six.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Okay. And better data exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Yeah, there’s better data now, uh, which we’ve added. The main source we have is from, uh, uh, Italy’s own, uh, statistical authority for health services, which is called Agenas, and it covers, uh, all hundred and five, uh, local health, uh, [00:02:00] authorities around the country. They cover about sixty clinical indicators, like, you know, how many people survive surgery, how many people have to go back to the hospital, how quickly, emergency response, teams respond<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that the new data is out, we thought it was a good time to look a-again at how Italian healthcare is performing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> So why isn’t it just on a website where I can look up my town?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Because the Italian government doesn’t make it very easy for you to go through the data. So there is a giant database of indicators per authority, not per town. All these indicators are super technical, very hard for people to understand, like, um, 30-day risk-adjusted mortality, I think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> gosh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Yeah, exactly. Who would understand that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our audience is mostly expats looking at relocating to Italy, they can’t read it, and most people can’t read it. So we are translating this into, uh, something people can relate to. We take [00:03:00] the data, we score every authority, we map every town in Italy, and then we add some of our own data, meaning how many pharmacies there are, clinics, uh, how far the hospital is, and then we provide one number from zero to 100 for each town in Italy, and that’s 7,896 towns that we cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> And the simple number means what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Simple number means that if you live in this town and you use the public healthcare system, this is roughly the quality of service that you’re gonna get.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Okay. So 30 seconds. What actually goes into the score?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> 70% is the quality of the local healthcare provider, survival rates after, after surgery, readmissions, uh, and again, the, uh, emergency room. 30% is physical access, the pharmacies, the clinics, the hospitals nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Okay. so now let’s get into specifics. Where does Italy do well?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Well, this has not changed from last year [00:04:00] or over the past few years. The top regions for healthcare are Tuscany, Veneto, and the Marche. These three regions, which are almost touching geographically, run the arc between central and northern Italy. Veneto averages a seventy-nine out of a hundred on our scale, Toscana seventy-eight, and the Marche seventy-six.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Why those three?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Tuscany’s, um, health service authorities are all in the top ten percent nationally. Lucca<\/a>, Massa, Pisa, Livorno, they all share one administration, which has a very high score. Florence, Prato<\/a>, and Pistoia are just a little bit below that. So you get what I mean. Generally, the quality of healthcare in Tuscany is pretty high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> And the Veneto?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Vicenza<\/a>, with which we are both very familiar, is the single highest-rated town in Italy with a score of ninety. So the province as a whole averages eighty-eight, and all the nearby provinces also are doing very well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> [00:05:00] Okay, tell me more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Okay. A big surprise is Lake Garda<\/a>. Lake Garda, as you know, is on the border between Veneto and Lombardy, and, um, on the east shore you have Veneto, on the west shore you have Lombardy, and the difference between the two is massive. The east shore averages seventy-seven, and the west shore, which is literally so close you could, you know, fire a bow and arrow across, averages forty-five.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s the same difference as there would be between the Italian healthcare system and the United States healthcare system. That’s how different the performance is so nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Wow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Yeah. So anyone that needs serious medical care on the west rationally would drive around to Verona<\/a> or further west to, uh, some of the larger hospitals, um, in Lombardy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> And what else surprises you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> A big surprise to me this year was Sicily, central Sicily. Central Sicily is doing much better than last [00:06:00] year. Enna<\/a>, which is a, uh, I think at ve- at the very center of the island, is, uh, at the 76th national percentile. It particularly good traits are, uh, mortality after a heart attack, after a stroke. This is materially better than the Italian average. So there’s parts of Sicily that do very well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> That goes against everything people usually hear about healthcare in the South.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Yeah, it does go against the grain of the conventional north-south narrative. Um, but, uh, there are weak areas, especially in coastal Sicily, Palermo, Catania<\/a>. You have to look at the– frankly, you have to look at the map to understand just how different Italy is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Okay. And bottom of the ranking?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Basilicata, a region a lot of people don’t know about. It’s the, you know, the insole of, uh, Italy’s boot. Um, Aliano, the village for literature fans where Carlo Levi [00:07:00] wrote Cristo si \u00e8 fermato a Eboli<\/a><\/em>, where basically he was narrating about just how remote and foreign parts of southern Italy were, is the lowest scoring town in Italy with a score of twenty-five.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the healthcare in Matera<\/a>, the authority that covers it, is, the lowest of all the health authorities that we ranked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> But when you say 25, you mean something specific?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Yeah, even the worst Italian authorities calibrated against, international rankings, uh, it’s, you know, it’s still a functioning universal health system. Don’t think that because Matera is ranking last, it means that it is, uh, a non-functional healthcare system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It just means that it performs significantly less well than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> So let’s talk practically. If you’re moving to Italy and you have a chronic condition like, diabetes, heart disease, where should you look?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> For community and primary care, your general practitioner matter [00:08:00] most if you have chronic conditions, and so you wanna stay out of the hospital. In this, Tuscany is doing the best. It has a very strong community care score, meaning that the local GP network works well Against the national average of 50, especially Lucca. It does very well on this, uh, particular pillar. The Marche and the Veneto are also very strong. And, um, from a weak community care perspective, Lombardy, southern Lazio, so the area around Rome and, uh, large regions in the south don’t do too well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s not because your condition won’t be treated, but because the local system is less effective at keeping you out of the emergency room. That’s what the statistics say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> If you’re worried more about accidents like, mm, kids who do mountain sports, lots of driving, that profile, um,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Well, you should stay safe first, but if you’re looking at how well the [00:09:00] emergency response is, then Aosta<\/a> at the very top of the country does well. Tuscany also performs well. Um, you know, it’s the usual, usual regions I mentioned, uh, before. What you’re going to care about mostly is how far you are from a hospital, and that’s where the driving range to a hospital is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I would basically filter towns by how far you are from a hospital, which is a metric that we do in the report. And then, uh, you know, it’s better to be 10 minutes away from a medium quality hospital than 60 minutes away from a great hospital if you have to run to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> And someone older, sixties, seventies, planning to retire in Italy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Uh, I’d say all three pillars matter, uh, plus the physical access. Again, drive time to hospital, critical if you’re 75 and, you know, you really need to get seen very quickly. Uh, you wanna be in a city w- that has a strong healthcare system. Lucca, Pisa<\/a>, Vicenza, Padua, just, you know, look in the Town Explorer and, uh, filter [00:10:00] by, um, healthcare quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You’ll see quickly which cities rank on top on all three pillars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> And what about the seven percent tax towns in the south,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> I was waiting for this, knowing you. Um, yeah, a lot of them sit, uh, towards the bottom. It doesn’t mean don’t go. It just means, uh, these are smaller cities. The public system sometimes is either a little bit far away or not performing as well as in larger cities. So go with your eyes open and search for the towns that do have a better performance in healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> One thing I want to be clear about before we close, this is only the public system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Yeah, that’s right, and thank you for saying that. We only cover the public system. Um, we look at the universal national health service, which is what most people use. We do not measure private clinics. They do not,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

report this kind of data, so the famous private specialists<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in, uh, the border with Austria, the major [00:11:00] teaching hospitals in Rome, like Gemelli or the San Raffaele in Milan, these are organized separately and do not flow into the rating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although, of course, if you live near one of these, we will count that in the driving range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> matters for Bolzano<\/a>, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Yeah. Exactly. So Bolzano you’d expect to score the very top, given the reputation for efficiency, but it only scores only, you know, it’s still very good, a seventy-six. And, uh, that is because, uh, a lot of the healthcare, that, gives it such a strong reputation is based on the private sector and the German-Austrian integration, which you’re not gonna find in Italian healthcare data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So keep in mind that the private, the, the going private option is available to everyone in Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> So okay, Luca, the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> The answer to what is the best healthcare system in Italy, well, you had not guessed it. It is the Veneto, with an average [00:12:00] rating of seventy-nine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Really? I had Lombardia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Yeah, you mentioned that, and I’m afraid you were wrong. A lot of people would have agreed with you, and as I mentioned before, Vicenza came out on top with the local health authority at the ninety-third national percentile. And I also\u2026 This is something not a lot of people know, because of the US base nearby, it also has an English-speaking desk that’s only there for expats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They don’t need to be Americans, I am assured by the staff there. So that’s another little add on to people that want to move to Vicenza or nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> So the real healthcare capital of Italy isn’t Milan, it’s Vicenza. Who knew?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Who would have known that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> interesting. Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Everyone, uh, please visit the Town Explorer, look at the, new healthcare scores. Let us know if you have any questions, and, we hope that this is going to [00:13:00] be very helpful for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Thank you, guys. Bye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Bye, take care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaker 2:<\/strong> That’s it for this week on Magic Towns, Italy. You can create a free account at Magic Towns it and explore over 2000 towns, including those offering the 7% tax scheme, as well as download dozens of expat guides. We have over 200 data points per town, more than Italy’s Statistics authority itself, covering everything from property prices to schools, healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crime and more. If you want full access to filters and unlimited searches, upgrade to Magic Town’s Premium. Use the Code Podcast for 20% off an annual plan. Thanks for listening. Our next podcast will be live on Saturday at 9:00 AM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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