I welcome the decision to devote a session of the seminar on health and welfare policies to issues related to a proper definition of informative system aimed to transferring knowledge among health workers, and from them to the general public, and vice versa. The debate is not new. On the contrary, it characterized the ’70’s and ’80’s in the period of health service reform and it was later taken up again during the discussions that led to the law (no. 328/2000) on welfare reform. Indeed, it is clear that this subject meets various needs. The first is that of identifying the needs to which we are to respond: this is an essential function if the services are not to fall into a merely self-referential logic rather than responding to the need to meet the general public’s requirements effectively. only subscribers can see the full article