Editorial: Health Technologies: a challenge to tackle in NETWORK

Health and social challenges require the adoption of new approaches to prevention, diagnostics and care, which pose important sustainability and equity issues to the different healthcare systems of Italian regions. It is therefore essential to set up sustainable models, as part of an overall health innovation process, where ongoing structural reforms are able to increase the effectiveness and resilience of health systems. The participation of citizens, patients, formal and informal caregivers in the planning, set-up and evaluation of these new solutions is pivotal to overcome those current approaches which are no longer fulfilling the provision of integrated social and health services. Digital transformation of health and care provides tools capable to support the modernization of social and health systems, and their adaptation to challenges such as the progressive population ageing, especially in a framework of shared resources and skills, that bring the citizen at the center of the healthcare politics, addressing health needs at individual and community level. The adoption of advanced technologies for diagnostics and therapy, and the digitization of services and care, represent an opportunity to be seized to set a virtuous circuit connecting needs, innovation and investments, through the adoption of transparent procedures. The collaborative approach to the provision of health services through network models allows the multidisciplinary management of the innovative tools that are progressively adopted, while supporting operators training, citizen empowerment and outcomes monitoring, also through rationalization and centralized management of financial resources. With these premises, on 1st October 2018 MeFAVS, the Mediterranean Federation for Advancing of Vascular Surgery was founded, willing to connect University Professors, heads of Vascular Departments and consultant surgeons for ongoing scientific, educational and clinical cooperation amongst the Mediterranean basin countries, such as Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Emirates, Albania, Croatia and Turkey, among others. Its activities, some currently and actively ongoing, have been a series of verbal information exchanges, meetings and surveys based on common topics of vascular pathology, epidemiology, new treatments and materials for Vascular Surgery. This project was born in collaboration with the “Federico II” University of Naples and the Campania Region which, according to the European Community directives and regulations, aimed to include MeFAVS in the Pro.M.I.S. (“Progetto Mattone Internazionale” Italian Ministry of Health Programme for Internationalization of Regional Health Systems) linked to the Horizon 2020 cycle to gain access to European Community funds managed by the Regional Governance. During a two-days meeting held in Pozzuoli (Naples) between the 19th and 20th of June 2019, collaborative networking approaches to innovative services for citizens' health and sustainability problems related to the Regional Health System were thoroughly discussed. On the first day of the 2nd International Congress of MeFAVS several topics like "High Technologies in Vascular Surgery" were faced, in line with the general theme of the Forum, and "The diabetic artery disease", an issue of great interest and relevance, selected as a common research topic among all the countries belonging to the Federation. The second day was dedicated to the abovementioned Forum: “Health Technologies: a challenge to be faced in network”. In this Issue, selected original papers from this conference are reported. All those papers are divided Editorial: Health Technologies: a challenge to tackle in NETWORK