[Implementing clinical pathways: some practical notes]

The traditional biomedical paradigm is no longer a guarantee of quality for health care, facing increasingly difficult challenges caused by chronic diseases and increasingly fragmented resources that current healthcare systems are dealing with. Health care organizations, considered to be the most complex enterprises of the modern era, must be able to focus on the flow of patients, integrating primary and secondary care through tools such as the Integrated Care Pathways (ICP). This brief discussion attempts to define the ICP its purposes, the elements that characterize it, its limitations and the mechanisms to push for a successful implementation. In order to highlight the elements and basic steps for the creation of an ICP, the authors have compared five different clinical pathways, whose implementation they have contributed to. The comparison was made using two grids: the first showing the essential elements for the definition of lCP and the second one with features that can facilitate their effectiveness. The conclusions of the work show what, pursuing the construction of a pathway, we must never forget: to analyze the gap between the clinical-care activities performed and the theoretical framework provided by the evidence; to see the barriers to change that may impede the implementation; to involve all actors in the system, with particular attention to patients and their associations, and finally to provide a plan for information and education, addressed to health professionals and patients as well.