[Continuity of care: community care in Italy and Sweden. A comparison]

One of the objectives of the Health 21 document, approved by the World Health Association, European Region, is to create by the year 2010 an integrate sanitary system, where the population of the region count on a better access to the health services aimed at the family and the community. In accordance with the tendencies of the European nation, which are more and more open to confrontation, the research has, as main objective, the parallel analysis of the welfare continuity and integration of the Italian Nursing Home Care Service compared to the Swedish Health Care Service. The research has been structured from a sanitary accreditation project that the Veneto Region has started with the collaboration of the Ottawa Council On Health Services Accreditation (Cchsa). The analysis puts in evidenced the completion of the offer of the territory home services present in Padua. The comparison with the Swedish situation however puts in evidence some gaps and some possible developments of the Italian service involving above all the complete transcription of the patient information and the continuity of its communication, in particular in the nursing field. Another possible development of the Italian service concerns the method continuity, between the working units themselves and with the territory, which could be achieved using common nursing guide lines and protocols to manage standard caring situations. From the analysis of the european services it results that it is the nurse who has the most relevant role for the care quality improvement.