Innovation in medicine and deep-rooted health practice and traditions. Lifestyle changes, rehabilitation strategy and point-of-care non-invasive diagnostics: challenges, barriers and opportunities.

The analysis and detection of challenges, barriers, and opportunities for the initiatives of joint medical and scientific associations are the background from which new proposals may start with the possibility of succeeding and to be effective.
Better informed doctors make better care for patients: the development and updating of health literacy targeting distinct groups of population and health professionals is a factor of determining importance. Health literacy enhancement and increase will modify health awareness and behavior, health skills and medical skills, according to the target groups, which are also health professionals. For something to be important, it has to be perceived as suitable to change your life. If something does not affect your life, it is hard to consider it important. Something changing your life means you do something different than you would have done otherwise. This is also the case of the culture of circular and environmental health: however, its extended vision goes beyond the limits strictly linked to medical practice.
The general framework of such interventions must include the cascade of relevance, appropriate analysis, and foreseen impact. Furthermore, the implementation steps must be clear and consequential, with appropriate checks and monitoring and with explicit future exploitation prospects. Recognizing unmet needs in hugely different social, cultural, and geographical contexts requires preliminary study and field analysis but also pilot interventions that may have the possibility of being generalized. The experts committed are optimally suited if they include distinct and complementary experiences, cultures, and geographical areas.
Innovation in medicine can be hindered by many biases, but it can also be encouraged and favored by deep-rooted health practice and traditions.
Lifestyle changes but also rehabilitation strategy and point-of-care non-invasive diagnostics are topics of current relevance and impact. Their current relevance and impact lend themselves well to provide few examples of epidemiological and clinical experiences and models, suitable to briefly discuss and on which it is worth focusing and intervening. If harmonization, in relation to the availability of human resources, facilities and social and financial support is possible, these firsthand experiences of medical competencies will also be comprehensive and even generalizable.
The very well recognized and confirmed paradigm of healthy nutrition is still the Mediterranean Diet, with low salt intake: the challenge is how to adapt and assess it in a generalized way. The translation into practice is done by considering its profile and local availability of resources, acceptability, and verified substitutes.
Rehabilitation is still a neglected area, even though it is the step that allows us to consolidate and improve the results of many cutting-edge advancements in medical technology, innovative practices in healthcare delivery. Rehabilitation is often the cornerstone for substantiating and establishing the latest breakthroughs in medical research. Rehabilitation is a need for patients after surgery (major procedures, orthopedics, trauma), neurological disease, infectious disease and, but not only cancer. The fundamental characteristic is to have and implement interdisciplinary teams, with experience and skills in exercise medicine, health psychology and even nutrition. Such expertise is more advanced in few Countries: these knowledge and skills need to be translated and transferred with appropriate on-site training and with adaptations to other regions and cultural fields.
Point-of-care non-invasive diagnostics is a large field that is continually advancing. Particularly important is the use of clinical ultrasound, whose competence and practice must derive from education and training conducted in truly expert environments and by the help of sustainable tools of telemedicine.
In conclusion: the joint efforts of distinct scientific and professional associations must use and focus on well-reputed teaching tools, peer-reviewed journals and reliable media and dissemination tools. All available channels must be activated to interact with end-users, patients, health professionals, the public, stakeholders and decision makers. This is what we are currently doing by developing and disseminating recommendations, guidelines, and policy briefs.