Deploying New Perspectives of Network Organizations for Chronic Diseases’ Integrated Management

The social frame of healthcare organizations in Europe (and in particular in the Italian Public Sector), as a combination of relational, formal and informal aspects, is one of their most relevant sources of complexity, which leads to different approaches about decisional, clinical and organizational processes (Cicchetti, 2004). These issues have been enlightened as well by the increasing social incidence of chronic-degenerative pathologies, such as Diabetes Mellitus type 2. In this regard, the Italian national e-government strategy has first pointed out the need for paths of integration and interoperability among information systems to ensure a safe exchange of information (CNIPA, 2008). The activity of “integrated design” of information flows between doctors and patients allows the creation and development of reticular organizational forms in which many non contiguous actors work at the same time on the diagnosis and care process. This paper shows how the adoption of the Social Network Analysis (SNA), as theoretical and methodological perspective that emphasizes the social reality as reticular framework (Moreno, 1987), can provide an innovative approach for the study of the “pathology networks” and the “integrated management” of Diabetes Mellitus type 2, where ICT solutions are (or are about to be) currently involved. © 2010, IGI Global. All rights reserved.