Violence against women: An observational study in an Italian emergency department.

Violence against women is a pervasive phenomenon affecting one in three women aged ≥15 in the world that are more likely to visit an emergency department (ED) for the serious physical and psychological consequences of the abuse. The aim of this observational single-centre study is to describe the socio-demographic and clinical variables associated with violence against women. We enrolled 425 female patients who attended an Italian ED for trauma on 2019 and the patients' information was collected and analyzed with descriptive statistics. The average age of the patients was 41.5 (standard deviation = 14.2) years. 74.6% of the women were Italians, and 86.6% were of metropolitan origin. The reasons for the ED visit included aggression (67.5%), accidental trauma (29.0%) and unknown reasons (3.5%). Multivariate analysis confirmed that three factors were independently associated with violence: nationality (odds ratio [OR] = 0.27; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.09-0.77), head/face/neck injuries (OR = 7.32; 95% CI, 3.76-14.27) and multiple injuries (OR = 8.52; 95% CI, 1.03-70.47). Age over 25 was a protective factor. The study confirmed that being a foreigner and having head/face/neck injuries or multiple injuries are associated with violence against women.

[Improving operating room efficiency: an observational and multidimensional approach in the San Camillo-Forlanini Hospital, Rome]. / Miglioramento dell'efficienza nel blocco operatorio: uno studio osservazionale e multidimensionale nell'Azienda Ospedaliera San Camillo-Forlanini di Roma.

AIM: The management of operating rooms (ORs) is a complex process which requires an effective organizational scheme. In order to amore convinient allocation of resources a rigorous monitoring plan is needed to ensure operating rooms performances. All the necessary actions should be taken to improve the quality of the planning and scheduling procedure. METHODS: Between April-December, 2016 an organizational analysis has been carried out on the performances of the A.O. S. Camillo-Forlanini Hospital Operating Block applying the "process management" approach to the ORs efficiency. The project involved two different surgical areas of the same operating block the multi-specialist and elective surgery and cardio-vascular surgery . The analyses of the processes was made through the product, patient and safety approach and from different points of view: the "asis", process and stakeholder perspectives. Descriptive statistics was used to process raw data and Student's t-distribution was used to assess the difference between the two means (significant p value ˂0,05). The Coefficient of Variation (CV) was used to describe the variabilityamong data. RESULTS: The asis approach allowed us to describe the ORs inbound activities. For both operating block the most demanding weekly commitments in terms of time turned out to be the inventory management procedures of controlling and stocking medicines, general medical supplies and instruments (130[DS=±14] for BOE and 30[DS=±18] for CCH. The average time spent on preparing the operating room, separately calculated starting from the first surgical case, was of 27 minutes (SD=± 17) while for the following surgical procedures preparation time decreased to 15 minutes (SD= ± 10), which highlighted a meaningful difference of 12 minutes. A great variability was registered in CCH due to the unpredictability of these operations (CV 82%). The stakeholders' perspective revealed a reasonable level of satisfaction among nurses and surgeons (2.9 vs 2.3, respectively) and in anesthesiologist (2.8-BOE vs 2.4 CCH).Being brought to the surgical suite from an "external Unit" seems to have negatively influenced the patient's perception: preparation time turned out to be significantly lower for CCH patients rather than BOE ones (p˂0,001).The results of the safety procedure approach highlighted a moderate criticality in terms of cleaning up time and delay in the starting time of the first surgical case. CONCLUSION: More effort should be made to avoid any slowdown during the whole process. It is advisable to implement a lean system that may improve efficiency and quality of the service to reduce wastes and unproductive times. This would inevitably generate a more positive outcomes.

Prone Positioning and Intravenous Zanamivir may Represent Effective Alternatives for Patients with Severe ARDS Virus A (H1N1) Related Pneumonia in Hospitals with no Access to ECMO.

The first patient with influenza A/H1N1-related pneumonia was admitted to an Italian ICU at the end of August 2009. Until then, despite the international alarm, the level of awareness was low and very few Italian hospitals were equipped with ECMOs. Moreover the PCR test for A H1N1 virus was sporadically available and the emergency departments of even the largest institutions could rely only on the rapid test for the urgent screening of patients with pneumonia and respiratory failure. On September 5th, a young and "apparently" previously healthy man, was admitted to our ICU because of a severe ARDS caused by influenza A H1N1 virus. As there was no ECMO available, he was treated with prolonged cycles of prone positioning ventilation. Antiviral treatment was started with Oseltamivir, but as enteral absorption was impaired by paralytic ileus and tube feeding intolerance, Oseltamivir had to be discontinued. Intravenous Zanamivir 1200 mg/day for ten days was therefore prescribed as "off label" antiviral therapy. A bone marrow biopsy allowed the diagnosis of an initial stage of "hairy cells leukaemia." ARDS related to A/H1N1 influenza was the first sign of the disease in our patient. He did well with complete clearance of the infection from the BAL after 10 days of Zanamivir, although the nasopharyngeal swabs remained positive for ten more days. Prone positioning ventilation may be a life-saver strategy in patients with severe ARDS when ECMO is not immediately available. However, prone positioning ventilation is often associated with severe impairment of the absorption of drugs that require enteral administration via the nasogastric tube. In these cases, intravenous Zanamivir may be an effective alternative strategy.