Investigating the impact of CoViD-19 on the activities of a Department of General Medicine

Abstract

CoViD-19 has placed the health systems of many countries in further crisis. The elective surgeries were canceled and the staff of several departments, including general medicine, underwent a reallocation to deal with the health emergency. In a context of economic fragility, in recent years the use of indicators for measuring health quality and performance has acquired more and more importance. Access limited only to emergency-urgency cases within hospitals has however produced a benefit in improving the appropriateness of admissions. In this study the value of parameter sets obtained in year 2019 (pre-pandemic) and year 2020 (during the pandemic), including Length of Stay and Diagnostic Related Group (DRG) Weight, of the Department of General Medicine of the University Hospital of Salerno 'San Giovanni di Dio e Ruggi D'Aragona' in Salerno (Italy) were compared using statistical analysis and logistic regression. The statistical analysis shows an increase in the DRG Weight in 2020, so an increase of the complexity of the cases treated and a greater appropriateness of hospitalizations.