The individual rehabilitation project: a model to strengthen clinical rehabilitation in health systems worldwide

s from July 8th-9th, 2019, the World health organization (Who) held its second Global rehabilitation 2030 Meeting. The meeting reaffirmed rehabilitation as one of the five health strategies in light of the Astana Declaration on primary healthcare 2018,1 following the declaration of alma-ata (now almaty) from 1978.2 Who’s second Global rehabilitation 2030 Meeting highlighted functioning as the third health indicator, complementing mortality and morbidity,3, 4 and reasserted the central role of functioning for rehabilitation.5-7 Key insights from the second Global rehabilitation 2030 Meeting included the need for suitable approaches to strengthening rehabilitation from both the public health and the clinical perspective. the need for strengthening rehabilitation as a public health strategy was made apparent with the data from the Global burden of disease project8 that underscored the large number of potential beneficiaries of rehabilitation across a wide range of health conditions and over the life course.9 To ensure that all potential beneficiaries of rehabilitation worldwide have access to high quality rehabilitation services under universal health coverage schemes, Who launched the Guide for action for policy and programming at the country level10 and embarked on the development of a research agenda for health policy and systems research in collaboration with Who’s alliance for health policy and systems research.11 to strengthen rehabilitation from the clinical perspective, Who will provide member states with a package of rehabilitation interventions in collaboration with cochrane rehabilitation.9, 12 long recognized as fundamental in rehabilitation, functioning is an underlying element that threads the development of the package of rehabilitation interventions.13-15 functioning, operationalized by the international Classification of Functioning, Disability and health (icf),16 plays a role in identifying the interventions to include in the package of rehabilitation interventions as well as intervention gaps, in reporting outcomes related to interventions, and in describing human and technical resources requirements in specific interventions.12 the second Global rehabilitation 2030 Meeting provided the platform for discussions on how to make best use of both the Guide for action and the package of rehabilitation interventions towards advancing the rehabilitation 2030 agenda. in light of these discussions we aim to highlight in this editorial the potential of the icf-based individual rehabilitation project developed in italy to serve as a model for strengthening clinical rehabilitation in countries worldwide.