National Federation of the medical and pharmaceutical sector, social health care cooperatives and social-health mutual societies The National Federation of the medical and pharmaceutical sector, social health care cooperatives and social-health mutual societies (FederazioneSanità – Health Federation) is the new organization of Confcooperative – Health Sector. It combines cooperatives operating in the different areas of health care (physicians’ and general practitioners cooperatives, social and health care cooperatives, pharmaceutical and social-health mutual societies) to create a shared network of health, social, welfare and complementary mutuality services to be offered to citizens. Mission: It was created in 2010 to: • represent in a more effective and powerful way the interests of member-cooperatives operating in primary care under the National Health System; • support the achievement of integration policies between the different social and health care actors, creating a network of social, health, welfare and complementary mutuality services; • respond to the need for assistance by citizens at the different stages of chronic illnesses and disabilities and support families outside the hospital and at home; • promote the cooperative organization model, based on mutual support and solidarity, in a Health System where the need for health is often left in the hands of   those who offer services; • design new "network" templates to ensure a continuum of care in a system struggling with limited resources. With the creation of the national FederazioneSanità health cooperatives now offer a specific response to the needs of the sector, which today require increased attention, a new focus, new regulations, and specificity of action also regarding the ongoing regulatory changes. The mission of FederazioneSanità is therefore to propose a new way of viewing the regional care network and the system of outpatient and home-care services to individuals, as well as incentives among the various "actors" of the current system, a process of “informal cross-linking" to increase the level of functional coordination of every single member of the "network" and promotes all the actors, assigning a role to each. Membership As of April 2011, FederazioneSanità network  represents 262 member co-operatives. At the sector level, the absolute majority of members, 62%, is represented by "social cooperatives with health care purposes." The cooperatives have more than 55,000 individual members. Out of these, more than 20,000 individual members  subscribed in complementary social-health mutual societies. The individual members are more than 2,600 doctors. With regard to its economic and structural influence, the FederazioneSanità network has a  direct and indirect turnover of over 4 billion Euros. Capitalization stands at around 400 million Euros. Almost 80% of the capitalization and aggregate capitalization of the FederazioneSanità System refers to cooperation in the pharmaceutical sector. The gender composition of members in FederazioneSanità cooperative enterprises shows a slight majority of men. However, women account for 57.5% of members in cooperatives specializing in health care. President: Giuseppe Milanese e-mail: federazionesanita@confcooperative.it