The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on radiology residents in Northern Italy.

OBJECTIVES: To assess changes in working patterns and education experienced by radiology residents in Northwest Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: An online questionnaire was sent to residents of 9 postgraduate schools in Lombardy and Piedmont, investigating demographics, changes in radiological workload, involvement in COVID-19-related activities, research, distance learning, COVID-19 contacts and infection, changes in training profile, and impact on psychological wellbeing. Descriptive and χ2 statistics were used. RESULTS: Among 373 residents invited, 300 (80%) participated. Between March and April 2020, 44% (133/300) of respondents dedicated their full time to radiology; 41% (124/300) engaged in COVID-19-related activities, 73% (90/124) of whom working in COVID-19 wards; 40% (121/300) dedicated > 25% of time to distance learning; and 66% (199/300) were more involved in research activities than before the pandemic. Over half of residents (57%, 171/300) had contacts with COVID-19-positive subjects, 5% (14/300) were infected, and 8% (23/300) lost a loved one due to COVID-19. Only 1% (3/300) of residents stated that, given the implications of this pandemic scenario, they would not have chosen radiology as their specialty, whereas 7% (22/300) would change their subspecialty. The most common concerns were spreading the infection to their loved ones (30%, 91/300), and becoming sick (7%, 21/300). Positive changes were also noted, such as being more willing to cooperate with other colleagues (36%, 109/300). CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 pandemic changed radiology residents' training programmes, with distance learning, engaging in COVID-19-related activities, and a greater involvement in research becoming part of their everyday practice. KEY POINTS: • Of 300 participants, 44% were fully dedicated to radiological activity and 41% devoted time to COVID-19-related activities, 73% of whom to COVID-19 wards. • Distance learning was substantial for 40% of residents, and 66% were involved in research activities more than before the COVID-19 pandemic. • Over half of residents were exposed to COVID-19 contacts and less than one in twenty was infected.

Industrial Smart Working: a socio-technical model for enabling successful implementation.

With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have been pushed to re-think their traditional working models to comply with the need for social distancing. In this context, Smart Working practices have been proposed to re-arrange the workforce activities ensuring the minimization of risks as well as business continuity. Despite traditionally most of the smart working practices have been applied to white collars job profiles, the COVID-19 pandemic opened the way to the introduction of Smart Working practices also in the factory environments, introducing the concept of Industrial Smart Working (ISW). This paper aims at contributing to the development of the concept of ISW proposing a socio-technical model discussing the main enabling factors that can support the successful industrial implementation of time and space flexible working models.

How Can Hybrid Simulation Support Organizations in Assessing COVID-19 Containment Measures?

Simulation models have always been an aid in epidemiology for understanding the spread of epidemics and evaluating their containment policies. This paper illustrates how hybrid simulation can support companies in assessing COVID-19 containment measures in indoor environments. In particular, a Hybrid Simulation (HS) is presented. The HS model consists of an Agent-Based Simulation (ABS) to simulate the virus contagion model and a Discrete Event Simulation (DES) model to simulate the interactions between flows of people in an indoor environment. Compared with previous works in the field of simulation and COVID-19, this study provides the possibility to model the specific behaviors of individuals moving in time and space and the proposed HS model could be adapted to several epidemiological conditions (just setting different parameters in the agent-based model) and different kinds of facilities. The HS approach has been developed and then successfully tested with a real case study related to a university campus in northern Italy. The case study highlights the potentials of hybrid simulation in assessing the effectiveness of the containment measures adopted during the period under examination in the pandemic context. From a managerial perspective, this study, exploiting the complementarity of the ABM and DES approaches in a HS model, provides a complete and usable tool to support decision-makers in evaluating different contagion containment measures.