[Which tools should be used to identify learning objectives for the health service? The experience of the Emilia-Romagna Region (Italy)].

The main health education target of the Emilia-Romagna Region for the period 2008-2010 is to develop pathways of continuous learning for healthcare workers and managers in hospitals. The pathways have the aim of governing the innovation process, improving services, developing new skills, spreading good managerial and professional working practices and integrate knowledge and cooperation between professions at institutional and service levels. This paper synthetically illustrates the role of the different regional institutions (primary care trusts and NHS trusts) in establishing the objectives and the preferable procedures for teaching. The main difficulties concern the effective planning of homogeneous teaching, as well as the ways to translating the needs of the health of the patients into educational projects.