The National Council for Research (CNR) is the National body in charge for applied and basic research according to the policies stated by the Italian government, with more than 7000 employees. CNR is being re-organized into one hundred Institutes, and several multiannual research programs are in preparation, to aggregate resources from CNR Institutes, Universities and industry on prioritary issues for the country. A candidate topic for one of those research programs is e-health.

The Institute for Biomedical Technology (ITB) was created in the '70s to manage a special research program with the same name, allocating funds and assisting external teams in carrying out research (mainly by providing informatics skills). It also carries out its own research programs and participates to European and National projects. Other CNR Institutes closely cooperating on e-health include the Institute of Clinical Physiology (IFC) and the Institute for Population Studies (IRPPS). The above CNR Institutes were coordinating several specific programs (with projects from CNR, University and industry) about e-health topics, on Expert Systems, Knowledge Based Systems, ICT for surgery, Electronic Health Records, Mobile devices, Personal Health Records.

ITB signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Health to cooperate on e-health research. ITB participated to the preparation of the feasibility study for the New Health Information System (NSIS), leaded by the Ministry of Health.

With FIASO (one of the two National Federations of Hospitals and Local Trusts) and IRPPS is in charge of the analysis of the Italian experiences and best practices. Moreover, ITB is maintaining a catalogue of ICT experiences in hospital and local trusts, with the selection of best practices and an annual prize given by the Ministry of Health during one of the major events for innovation in the Public Administration sector (Forum PA).

The CNR participation to the project will be led by Prof. Angelo Rossi Mori.

Webpage: http://www.cnr.it