The authors propose a conceptual reference framework within which to develop the issues of frail elderly people and the organization of primary care. Fragility is described through two operational metrics: an analytical one of the determinants of fragility and a synthetic one of fragility itself. The first is aimed at identifying the most appropriate care response, while the second expresses the patient's status. The text describes the integrated home care processes for the fragile patient experienced in various years of activity in the Veneto and the results of using an innovative multidimensional evaluation form for the fragile patient tested by a group of general practitioners. The theses presented are the result of an inductive approach, based on many years of experience in the field, where fragility was encountered, it was difficult to understand it and a "red thread" was sought that could lead, according to a classic bottom up path, to effective answers. The book is aimed at general practitioners, medical students, socio-health workers and administrators, patients and members of patient associations, researchers and experts in economics and healthcare organization, politicians and all those who wish to reflect on emerging health needs and on the construction of new organizational models of primary care.
Dedicated to explorers of new worlds, aware that the path is made by walking.
