COVID-19 pandemic, Piacenza calling. The survival strategy of an Italian Emergency Department.

COVID-19 pandemic, Piacenza calling. The survival strategy of an Italian Emergency Department.

Authors

  • Erika Poggiali a:1:{s:5:"en_US";s:69:"Ospedale Guglielmo da Saliceto, Emergency Department, Piacenza, Italy";}
  • Andrea Vercelli Ospedale Guglielmo da Saliceto, Emergency Department, Piacenza, Italy
  • Silvana Mazzoni Ospedale Guglielmo da Saliceto, Emergency Department, Piacenza, Italy
  • Davide Bastoni Emergency Department, “Guglielmo da Saliceto” Hospital, Piacenza, Italy
  • Teresa Iannicelli Ospedale Guglielmo da Saliceto, Emergency Department, Piacenza, Italy
  • Elena Demichele Ospedale Guglielmo da Saliceto, Emergency Department, Piacenza, Italy
  • Eva Ioannilli Ospedale Guglielmo da Saliceto, Emergency Department, Piacenza, Italy
  • Andrea Magnacavallo Ospedale Guglielmo da Saliceto, Emergency Department, Piacenza, Italy

Keywords:

CoVID-19, Italian epidemic, Emergency Department, CoVID-19 pandemic, disaster management, Piacenza

Abstract

CoVID-19 is a global health emergency, which has paralyzed most of the worldwide health systems. Italy is struggling hard with CoVID-19 pandemic since the end of February 2020, to avoid the collapse of its health  system. The number of CoVID-19 patients and deaths are increasing day by day. At time of writing, in Italy there are 102253 infected patients and 19899 deaths. Despite being a relatively small city, Piacenza is one of the epicentres of the Italian epidemic, and our own hospital – Guglielmo da Saliceto – has quickly become a “CoVID-19 hospital”. Fully 80% of beds in our hospital are reserved for ill CoVID-19 patients and ICU has tripled the number of beds. All these changes have required a great effort for all the medical staff to avoid the collpase of the local health system. We struggled to maintain our normal standard of care for each patient, but the severity of the disease and the high number of critically ill patients frustrated our efforts. Here we report our experience and challenge with managing such a disaster. We hope it could be useful for other Emergency Departments trapped in this global pandemic.

References

Maniscalco P, Poggiali E, Quattrini F, Ciatti C, Magnacavallo A, Caprioli S, Vadacca G, Michieletti E, Cavanna L, Capelli P. The Deep Impact of Novel CoVID-19 Infection in an Orthopedics and Traumatology Department: The Experience of the Piacenza Hospital. Acta Biomed. 2020 May 11;91(2):97-105. doi: 10.23750/abm.v91i2.9635.

Poggiali E, Vercelli A, Cillis MG, Ioannili E, Iannicelli T, Magnacavallo Andrea. Triage-decision making at the time of COVID-19 infection: the Piacenza strategy. Internal and Emergency Medicine, accepted 16 April 2020.

Poggiali E, Dacrema A, Bastoni D, Tinelli V, Demichele E, Mateo Ramos P, et al. Can lung ultrasound help critical care clinicians in the early diagnosis of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pneumonia? Radiology 2020. doi: 10.1148/radiol.2020200847

http://www.siaarti.it/News/grandi-insufficienze-organo-end-stage-cure-intensive-o-cure palliative.aspx

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Published

07-09-2020

Issue

Section

CORRESPONDENCE/CASE REPORTS - SPECIAL COVID19

How to Cite

1.
COVID-19 pandemic, Piacenza calling. The survival strategy of an Italian Emergency Department. Acta Biomed [Internet]. 2020 Sep. 7 [cited 2024 Mar. 29];91(3):e2020045. Available from: https://mattioli1885journals.com/index.php/actabiomedica/article/view/9908