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BACKGROUND: The rapid spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is affecting many countries. While healthcare systems need to cope with the need to treat a large number of people with different degrees of respiratory failure, actions to preserve aliquots of the healthcare system to guarantee treatment to patients are mandatory. METHODS: In order to protect the Fondazione IRCCS-Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori di Milano from the spread of COVID-19, a number of to-hospital and within-hospital filters were applied. Among others, a triage process to detect severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) positivity in patients with cancer was developed consisting of high-resolution low-dose computed tomography (CT) scan followed by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) detection of SARS-CoV-2 in nose-throat swabs whenever CT was suggestive of lung infection. To serve symptomatic patients who were already admitted to the hospital or in need of hospitalization while waiting for RT-PCR laboratory confirmation of infection, a COVID-19 surveillance zone was set up. RESULTS: A total of 301 patients were screened between March 6 and April 3, 2020. Of these, 47 were hospitalized, 53 needed a differential diagnosis to continue with their cancer treatment, and 201 were about to undergo surgery. RT-PCR was positive in 13 of 40 hospitalized patients (32%), 14 of 52 day hospital patients (27%), and 6 of 201 surgical patients (3%). CONCLUSION: Applying filters to protect our comprehensive cancer center from COVID-19 spread contributed to guaranteeing cancer care during the COVID-19 crisis in Milan. A surveillance area and surgical triage allowed us to protect the hospital from as many as 33 patients infected with SARS-CoV-2.
RESUMO
Background: Hospital emergency departments (ED) can contribute to improve health outcomes and reduce costs of health care system. This study evaluated ED admissions during a twelve months period, analyzing characteristics of patients who underwent to emergency care in order to understand factors involved in ED overcrowding and promote adequate management. Methods: This retrospective study analyzed a twelve months window, with in-depth focus on December/January when almost all EDs reported overcrowding. All ED admissions were recorded in electronic schedules including: demographic characteristics, time/date of the access, incoming triage code, diagnosis, performed procedures, discharge, time/date of discharge. A backward multivariable logistic regression model was used to estimate relationships between investigated variables and ED pattern mortality. Results: A total of 416,299 ED admissions were analyzed. During the overcrowded period there was an increase in patients admissions (+32 patients per day, p = 0.0079) with a statistically significant rise of critical patients (+1.7% yellow codes and +0.7% red codes, p < 0.001) and older subjects (+1.4% patients aged 75 or more years, p < 0.001). Moreover, there were statistically significant increases in waiting times and in length of visits, a higher percentage of patients who were hospitalized (13.3% vs. 12.2%, p < 0.001), left ED (4.46% vs. 4.15%, p < 0.001) and died (0.27% vs. 0.17%, p < 0.0001). This latter result maintained a marginal statistical significance (OR = 1.16, 95% CI = 0.98-1.38, p = 0.075) after adjustment for confounding. Conclusion: Our study highlights that ED crowding can determine measurable worsening in ED services and patient outcomes as mortality, waiting times, lengths of stay, percentage of abandonment without being seen and, probably, costs. Thus, address ED crowding has to be considered an important public health priority requiring policymakers involvement.