BRINGING INNOVATION WHERE IT TRULY MATTERS
Interview with Carlotta Cattaneo
Carlotta Cattaneo is not afraid to start over. Nor to change direction. Born in 1980 in the province of Varese, she has navigated through various fields and industries before taking on the role of Chief Innovation Officer at CDS–Casa della Salute, a network of outpatient clinics across Liguria, Piedmont, and Sardinia that aims to reshape the relationship between healthcare and local communities. And it’s doing so through projects ranging from artificial intelligence applied to diagnostics to the digital transformation of the patient experience.
"My first degree was in Communication and Marketing, with a specialization in Institutional and Healthcare Communication," says Carlotta, who interned at the at the National Cancer Institute of Milan (Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori di Milano) during her undergraduate studies and wrote a thesis on doctor-patient communication. "That’s when I decided that healthcare would be my field." After graduation, she entered the consulting world, developing projects related to scientific research. But her desire to understand business dynamics more deeply led her to enroll, at age 28, in Economics and Business at Sapienza University in Rome, specializing in Corporate Strategy. "I worked full time and studied at night. It was an incredibly tough period, but a formative one." During those years, she also launched a startup in the shared payments field and joined a nonprofit program that supported digital startups, guiding young entrepreneurs from idea validation to go-to-market. "It was 2012 - the right time to be there. The Italian innovation ecosystem was just beginning to take shape." She later left Rome to return to Milan to work at PoliHub, the incubator of the Politecnico di Milano, where she coordinated acceleration programs in various sectors, including life sciences, collaborating with companies like Novartis. She then joined a scale-up focused on training software developers, where she served as Chief Operating Officer for four years. But her drive to work in healthcare led her to change paths once again. "On the brink of turning forty, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I decided to leave everything behind. Three days before lockdown, I joined Humanitas." At the Humanitas AI Center, she worked alongside data scientists and physicians to develop artificial intelligence solutions for medical applications. "It wasn’t about adopting existing technologies but building them internally, in direct collaboration with clinicians and researchers. It was an intense and incredible learning experience."
She brought this wealth of experience to Casa della Salute, where she has worked since late 2024. "I was fascinated by the outpatient clinic model: that’s where the future of healthcare lies - in local, decentralized care, not just in a few major hospitals." One of the main strengths of CDS is its wide network and proximity to patients. With nearly 38 outpatient clinics across Liguria, Piedmont, and Sardinia, the network provides over a million healthcare services each year. "CDS is a young but cutting-edge organization. There’s a strong culture of innovation that starts at the top, and that’s what convinced me to take on the challenge," Carlotta explains. Several projects are currently in development, and one of the most compelling involves diagnostic imaging. "We’re introducing artificial intelligence tools to support clinical decision-making, particularly in radiology. AI doesn’t replace the doctor, but it offers a second opinion, can highlight lesions that are sometimes invisible to the naked eye, and even suggest potential disease progressions based on millions of data points."
The second major initiative focuses on enhancing the patient's digital experience. This includes improving the existing digital platform, which allows users to book appointments, make payments, and access their reports, as well as exploring further developments such as remote monitoring of certain health parameters. "Imagine a chronic patient measuring their blood pressure at home, with data automatically shared with their doctor, who can then adjust the treatment plan or reschedule visits based on the patient’s evolving condition. It’s not just about efficiency - it’s about quality of care." The opportunities are numerous, but to fully realize them, it’s essential to work closely with doctors and patients, because every innovation must be rooted in their needs and tailored to the context in which it will be used.
"Artificial intelligence is not an end in itself—it’s a tool. What really matters is responding to patients’ real and evolving needs. Innovation is only valuable when it’s tangible, sustainable, and shared. Stakeholder engagement is key: clinicians, nurses, and technicians must be part of the process. And the return must be measured not only in economic terms, but also in diagnostic accuracy, physician satisfaction, workflow improvements, and better patient service. That’s why the adoption process is so critical. A technology can have enormous potential, but if it isn’t used, it’s worthless. That’s the challenge we’re tackling at CDS–Casa della Salute."
