Carmine Clemente

C. CLEMENTE, Welfare and ICT in health sociology by Achille Ardigò. Achille Ardigò has devoted a considerable importance to the use of Internet in the public and private health sector, both in the impact analysis and, more importantly, in the actual promotion of health services. He was envisaging, with large anticipation, the great potential of ICT, which would favour a better responses to health issues, also in terms of administrative and management efficiency. At the same time, he did not neglect to take into consideration some of the threats within Internet revolution: the risk of a «self service» behaviour from the patient’s side and that of a backward push of public with respect to private actors in the access to health care market. This paper reviews the scientific commitment of Achille Ardigò in figuring out an e-Health model in contrast to system theory and to micro-macro relationship, in the light of new health environment contexts and of new European models of welfare society. Key words: welfare, e-health, Ardigò, web, health system.