THEImportant change of pace in the continuity of care in Rome. Compared to the start of the trial last December, visits to the family doctor in the 17 clinics kept open by the ASL in concert with the medical unions on Saturdays and Sundays have almost doubled in some locations, and generally increased by 50% from 10 to 19. The most crowded are the clinics of Monte Sacro, Trastevere, Trieste District, Ostia Lido, but the others are also growing, always managed by family doctors and "on-call".
Fimmg Lazio secretary Maria Corongiu in reading the frequency data of the last weekend - rarely less than 20 accesses per day and in some cases peaks of 60, i.e. double the number of patients in the waiting room on a weekday - underlines how the coverage of "urgencies bureaucratic" and green codes on the territory in the capital is now a reality. «Since December we have registered over 17,000 accesses in 53 working days (weekends of four and a half months); between Easter and 1st May there was a doubling of the "frequencies" in many studios, perhaps thanks to word of mouth».
THEIn any case, these are "new" numbers, which had not been reached with the outpatient clinics for the "white codes" tested so far in 13 hospitals in Lazio. «In the "Amb med" trial, with visit points next to the emergency rooms, in a year and a half the doctors employed had 40,000 patients, which drops to around 10,000 if screened over the same four months as the "open clinics" " in the weekend. In four months, therefore, we worked about twice as much as in the hospital».
Corongiu reflects on how the bet may have been won: "Patients who go directly to the ED could be more self-selected, their profile could be more oriented initially towards the suspicion of a severe acute case, while in our nine hours (in average two shifts of 4 and a half hours paid 150 euros gross each) the service remains something more than a screening of any emergencies as an alternative to emergency room. In fact, both cases of acute or pseudo-acute and chronic cases are treated: everything except chest pain for which we refer you to the Emergency Department. And the patients like it."