The CPO Piemonte, through the SSD Clinical and Evaluative Epidemiology, participates in the monitoring of patients underway in the AOU City of Health and Science of Turin.
The epidemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 has affected the regions of Northern Italy within a few weeks, with a serious impact on the major hospitals. In the AOU City of Health and Science of Turin the first cases were diagnosed towards the end of February 2020.
As a source of epidemiological emergencies of this seriousness, the current health information systems, mainly developed for administrative purposes, are inadequate to describe the phenomenon for monitoring and evaluation purposes, for reasons of poor timeliness and lack of information on the clinical level.
To try to partially compensate for this gap, a system for monitoring and analyzing the clinical progress of these cases has been designed with a dual purpose:
- an audit system capable of providing updated information on the flow of patients, on their clinical characteristics, on the need for assistance with different levels of intensity and on the outcome of hospitalization;
- prospective observational study to analyze the role of the prognostic factors of patients and the effectiveness of the treatments received in determining the outcome of hospitalization.
In designing this system, an attempt was made to find an acceptable balance between data quality requirements (completeness, accuracy, validity) and timeliness in the ability to return information.
The system, which includes all the patients present in the hospital and access to the emergency room, is currently active in the Molinette hospital, but can be extended to include the cases reported in the other AOU units and possibly by other healthcare companies.