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Background: The aim of this retrospective comparative study was to assess the impact of COVID-19 and delayed emergency department access on emergency surgery outcomes, by comparing the main clinical outcomes in the period March–May 2019 (group 1) with the same period during the national COVID-19 lockdown in Italy (March–May 2020, group 2). Methods: A comparison (groups 1 versus 2) and subgroup analysis were performed between patients' demographic, medical history, surgical, clinical and management characteristics. Results: Two-hundred forty-six patients were included, 137 in group 1 and 109 in group 2 (p = 0.03). No significant differences were observed in the peri-operative characteristics of the two groups. A declared delay in access to hospital and preoperative SARS-CoV-2 infection rates were 15.5% and 5.8%, respectively in group 2. The overall morbidity (OR = 2.22, 95% CI 1.08–4.55, p = 0.03) and 30-day mortality (OR = 1.34, 95% CI 0.33–5.50, =0.68) were significantly higher in group 2. The delayed access cohort showed a close correlation with increased morbidity (OR = 3.19, 95% CI 0.89–11.44, p = 0.07), blood transfusion (OR = 5.13, 95% CI 1.05–25.15, p = 0.04) and 30-day mortality risk (OR = 8.00, 95% CI 1.01–63.23, p = 0.05). SARS-CoV-2-positive patients had higher risk of blood transfusion (20% vs 7.8%, p = 0.37) and ICU admissions (20% vs 2.6%, p = 0.17) and a longer median LOS (9 days vs 4 days, p = 0.11). Conclusions: This article provides enhanced understanding of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on patient access to emergency surgical care. Our findings suggest that COVID-19 changed the quality of surgical care with poorer prognosis and higher morbidity rates. Delayed emergency department access and a "filter effect" induced by a fear of COVID-19 infection in the population resulted in only the most severe cases reaching the emergency department in time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Talar dome osteo-chondral lesions (OCL) are defects of the cartilaginous surface and subchondral bone often associated with sport practice. This retrospective observational work has the purpose of assessing: a) The clinical outcomes in the patients study group and in the three sub-groups; b) medium-term morphological and qualitative outcomes of the newly formed tissue by magnetic resonance imaging; c) if there is the correlation between new formed tissue clinical, morphological RM evaluation and qualitative clinical outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In medical wards, to guarantee safe, sustainable and effective treatments to heterogeneous and complex patients, care should be graduated into different levels of clinical intensity based on a standardised assessment of acute-illness severity. To support this assumption, we conducted a prospective observational study on all unselected admissions of 3,381 patients to a medium size internal Italian Medicine Unit by comparing Standard Medical Care model (SMC) to a new paradigm of patient admission based on Intensity of Medical Care (IMC). Methods: The SMC operated during 2013, while an IMC organizational model started in 2014. In SMC, patient’s admission was performed according to bed availability only. In IMC, after the stratification of clinical instability performed using the National Early Warning Score (NEWS) and clinical judgment, patients were allocated to three different ward areas (high, middle, and post-acute medical care). We compared clinical and organizational outcomes of IMC patients (2015) to SMC patients (2013), performing adjusted logistic regression model. Results: We managed 1,609 and 1,772 patients using SMC and IMC, respectively. The IMC seemed to be associated to a lower risk of clinical worsening for patients. Comparing IMC to SMC, the odds ratio (aOR) for urgent transfers to intensive care units was 0.69 (p = 0.03), and for combination of urgent transfers and early deaths was 0.68 (p<0.01). Conclusions: Redesigning the configuration of internal medicine ward to support urgency and competency of the clinical response by applying IMC paradigm based on the NEWS, improved outcomes in patients with acute illness and enhanced ward performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: We aimed to assess the performance of the National Early Warning Score (NEWS) as tool for patient risk stratification at admission in an acute Internal Medicine ward and to ensure patient placement in ward areas with the required and most appropriate intensity of care. As secondary objective, we considered NEWS performance in two subgroups of patients: sudden cardiac events (acute coronary syndromes and arrhythmic events), and chronic respiratory insufficiency.Methods: We conducted a perspective cohort single centre study on 2,677 unselected patients consecutively admitted from July 2013 to March 2015 in the Internal Medicine ward of the hospital of Trento, Italy. The NEWS was mandatory collected on ward admission. We defined three risk categories for clinical deterioration: low score (NEWS 0-4), medium score (NEWS 5-6), and high score (NEWS≥7). Following adverse outcomes were considered: total and early (<72 hours) in-hospital mortality, urgent transfers to a higher intensity of care. A logistic regression model quantified the association between outcomes and NEWS.Results: For patients with NEWS >4 vs patients with NEWS <4, the risk of early death increased from 12 to 36 times, total mortality from 3.5 to 9, and urgent transfers from 3.5 to 7. In patients with sudden cardiac events, lower scores were significantly associated with higher risk of transfer to a higher intensity of care. In patients affected by chronic hypoxaemia, adverse outcomes occurred less in medium and high score categories of NEWS.Conclusions: National Early Warning Score assessed on ward admission may enable risk stratification of clinical deterioration and can be a good predictor of in-hospital serious adverse outcomes, although sudden cardiac events and chronic hypoxaemia could constitute some limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]