Lucia Ferrara

Lucia Ferrara is an Associate Professor of Practice in Healthcare Management at SDA Bocconi School of Management. Since 2016, she has been a researcher at CERGAS SDA Bocconi (Centre for Research on Health and Social Care Management), within the Healthcare Management area.

At SDA Bocconi, she coordinates the Healthcare Management track of the Master of International Healthcare Management, Economics and Policy (MIHMEP). She is also the Scientific Director of several executive education programs focused on the management of local healthcare services and patient pathways, Digital Health, and Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare. In addition, she coordinates initiatives dedicated to rare diseases, including the Net4Rare project (“Building Networks for Rare Diseases”).

She has managed and contributed to numerous research, executive education, and organizational development projects with national and multinational healthcare companies, public institutions and healthcare providers operating at both national and regional levels, hospitals, professional and scientific associations, as well as major international organizations, including the European Union.

Her research focuses on the broad field of clinical governance, as well as the perspectives and tools of Population Health Management (PHM), healthcare process management, Diagnostic, Therapeutic and Care Pathways (PDTAs), digital transformation, and the analysis of national and international health policies.

Her current research activity is organized around three main streams. The first focuses on improving patient pathways and redesigning healthcare services for specific health conditions, with particular attention to oncology, chronic diseases, multimorbidity, and rare diseases. Within this area, she studies the contribution of data analytics, clinical networks, digitalization, and artificial intelligence to the redesign of care models and their managerial and organizational implications.

The second research stream concerns organizational change and implementation science, with the objective of understanding how innovations are introduced into healthcare services and which factors facilitate or hinder their adoption, particularly in relation to digitalization, artificial intelligence, and new technologies.

The third stream focuses on the integration between hospital and community-based care, with particular attention to continuity of care, patient transitions across care settings, and the implementation of Ministerial Decree 77/2022, which regulates the reorganization of territorial healthcare services in Italy.

In recent years, she has supported regional healthcare systems and healthcare organizations in major organizational transformation projects, including the territorial reorganization of oncology services in the Apulia Region and the implementation of Territorial Operations Centers (COTs). She has also conducted national and European research on clinical networks in oncology, rare diseases, and infectious diseases; on the implementation of PDTAs and care models for major chronic conditions; on intermediate and transitional care; on the use of big data and PHM approaches; on the evaluation of healthcare policies, such as the National Chronicity Plan and the National AIDS Plan; and on bundled payment models.

She is the Principal Investigator of several Horizon Europe projects focusing on oncology and multimorbidity, including the Geronte Project.

Lucia is the author of numerous academic publications on these topics. Her work has been published in leading journals serving both the international healthcare management and clinical communities, including Health Services Management Research (HSMR), International Journal of Integrated Care (IJIC), European Journal of Public Health (EJPH), BMC Health Services Research, MECOSAN, Welfare Oggi, and Politiche Sociali. Among her most recent contributions are studies on chronic diseases in Italy, the evaluation of health and social care integration, oncology care management within clinical networks and organizational transformation programs, comparisons of rare disease networks in Italy and abroad, and bundled financing models.

She actively participates in several international networks, including the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) and the European Health Management Association (EHMA), and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Integrated Care (JIC).

Lucia holds a Master’s Degree in Sociology, Social and Health Policy from the University of Bologna, a Master’s Degree in Health Economics and Health Policy from CORIPE Piemonte, and a Ph.D. in Design and Evaluation of Social and Health Policies from the University of Bari.