Who is responsible for your health: is it you, your doctor or the new technologies?

The aim of the paper is to disentangle the roles that patients, physicians and technology can have on patient health outcomes. The analysis focuses on patients suffering from hypercholesterolemia. Using a large and detailed dataset of patients collected by the Italian College of General Practitioners (SIMG) over the period 2001–2006, we observe the existence of heterogeneity in the time needed to reach an optimal level of health stock. We firstly explore whether patients recovering faster exhibit lower hospitalization rates. Secondly, we study the determinants of the speed of recovery to a good health status. Results suggest that a 10 % increase in the speed of recovery reduces hospitalization rates by 1 % in the general sample and by 1.25 % in patients in primary prevention. Furthermore, we show that recovering to a good health status is a multifaceted phenomenon, with technology explaining from 54 to 68 % of the total effect.