[Mortality from causes amenable to medical intervention in Lombardy (1980-1985)]

From Rutstein's sentinel events list, causes were selected which are regarded as most amenable to medical intervention. Considerable variation in mortality between Health Districts (in Northern Italy) was found in most of these diseases. This substantial variation should be examined further in order to discover the true causes of unnecessary deaths. Using such indexes as an alarm indicator could be very useful in monitoring the quality of care and in allocating resources.