Tech · 25 September 2026 · 5 min
Healthcare, Italy last in the G7: more resources are not enough without control
The news
Italy is last in the G7 for public healthcare spending.
Exteryo Report Editorial Team
More investments are essential, but asset serialisation and control are also needed to reduce waste, errors and unproductive time.
The short answer
Healthcare asset control brings together three things:
- Identitya unique digital identity for each object
- Eventsevents recorded the moment they happen
- Decisionsdata that becomes decisions
The short answer
More resources are essential, but every new resource should enter a system capable of tracking it and measuring its use.
Why it is not simple
The obvious answer is to spend more, and it is right.
Not enough.
Why it is not simple
The problem is not only how much we spend: it is also how capable we are of controlling what we have already purchased.
Chapter 1 of 5
Does public healthcare really need more resources?
The resources
Yes, they are essential: Italy ranks last among the G7 countries for public healthcare spending, and no digital platform can replace staff, beds or medical expertise.
Before moving on
How much more do other European countries invest per inhabitant on average?
The source
According to the data on public healthcare spending released by the GIMBE Foundation, other European countries invest on average about a thousand dollars more per inhabitant. Behind the percentages are people: waiting patients, doctors under pressure, nurses, facilities, equipment and services that must work even when resources are insufficient.
The resources
Thinking of solving the underfunding of healthcare by introducing new technologies would be a convenient, but false, shortcut.
Note
Precisely because available resources are limited, it becomes even more important to know where they are, how they are used and when they need to be replaced.
Chapter 2 of 5
Where are the resources we already have being wasted?
Invisible costs
An untraceable biomedical device, an expired PPE, equipment with unrecorded maintenance or a supply ordered twice are invisible costs.
Invisible costs
Taken individually, they seem like marginal incidents. Multiplied across wards, hospitals and healthcare authorities, they become a huge economic and operational problem.
The object's history
In many healthcare organisations, a portion of the assets is still managed with spreadsheets, manual records, non-unique labels and retrospective checks. When an answer is needed, the object's history must be reconstructed: where it is, who used it, when it was checked.
The object's history
If obtaining this information requires phone calls, manual checks and hours of searching, the system is not really controlling that asset. It is trying to remember it.
Note
We cannot manage what we cannot identify.
Chapter 3 of 5
What does serialising an asset mean?
Identity
Serialising means assigning a unique digital identity to each object: not a generic product category, but that exact device, with its history.
The digital record
Serialisation is the grammar of control.
1 of 3
Identifying data
2 of 3
Sanitisation cycles
3 of 3
Maintenance interventions
Identity
Without a unique identity, data remains fragments that fail to tell a reliable story.
The life cycle
An effective control system does not stop at the initial inventory. It accompanies the asset throughout its life cycle, from the warehouse to the patient's bed: entry into the facility, assignment, use, transfer, maintenance, sanitisation and disposal.
Chapter 4 of 5
Does controlling mean surveilling healthcare staff?
The people
No. Controlling means making objects, processes and events verifiable, reducing the time doctors, nurses and technicians spend searching for information or filling out documents by hand.
The people
A good technological system should remove unnecessary work from people, not add more. If recording an event requires many steps, passwords or hard-to-use devices, that check will be postponed.
The people
Data entered later, based on memory, does not have the same value as an event automatically captured the moment it happens.
The technologies
This is why technologies must be chosen according to the process.
- RFID UHFAutomatically detects many objects at the gate or ward entrance
- NFCIdentifies a single device, even with a smartphone
- IoT sensorsAdd environmental or location information
The technologies
There is no absolute best technology: there is the correct one for the action the operator must perform and for the decision the data will have to support.
Chapter 5 of 5
When does data become a decision?
The decision
Collecting information is not enough.
The decision
Value is created when the system signals a deadline, identifies an anomaly, prevents a duplicate purchase, reconstructs accountability or immediately finds a necessary device.
The archive
This is why a control platform must connect identification, serialisation, tracking and analysis. Otherwise, it risks becoming just a more elegant digital archive than the previous Excel spreadsheet.
Our point of view
Asking for greater investments in public healthcare is right and necessary. But every new resource should enter a system capable of tracking it and measuring its use.
Our point of view
We need to know not only how much we buy, but how much we actually use, how much we lose, how much remains idle and how much it costs not to have the information at the right time.
Note
Exteryo develops identification, serialisation and control systems with this goal: to give objects a digital identity and transform operational events into verifiable data.
In one sentence
Technology does not cure a patient. But it can prevent those who have to cure them from wasting time looking for a tool.
Exteryo Report
Takeaways
Six questions every asset should answer without a phone call. If an answer requires a search, the asset is not under control.
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Sources
Images and animations: illustrative objects generated with artificial intelligence. They do not depict real objects or documents mentioned in the article.
ExteryoExteryo Report · 25 September 2026