Strict limits on the prescriptions of drugs and tests, checks on those carried out, protests by patients. And the ASL reform for the Acqui – Ovada district enters the operational phase.
8/10/2015 – Editorial board – ovadese@alice.it
OVADA - "In compliance with the directives of the ASL, family doctors are obliged to strictly follow the notes in the prescription of drugs and the codes of prescriptive appropriateness". The sentence, in The display at the entrance to the Polimed in Largo Oratorio gives a good picture of the days of labor that family doctors experience they are living. “There is no need to protest,” the message continues. The experimentation of the family nurse started a year ago at the Polimed, the project which later became “Primavengoio” which represents the basis of the integration between the hospital and the territory that the ASL has identified as the objective of the newborn Acqui – Ovada health district. They call it "initiative medicine" because, at least in intention, it deals with the subject at potential risk before it manifests real problems. The goal is to minimize hospitalization, to inculcate more virtuous lifestyles and habits and, at the same time, to reduce the use of drugs.
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The territorial cardiology department identified in the plan submitted by the ASL to the region and the establishment of two short-term observation beds in the emergency room are also included in this area. In the last few days, all the family doctors of the city have been included in the project, together with the first two towns, Tagliolo and Cremolino. Officially nobody says anything. At the moment. However, the widespread sensation is that of a top-down project, not particularly cut on the reality of our territory. And that exposes the doctor to double fire: on the one hand, the need to meet a series of patients in old age and with long-term problems whose habits cannot change overnight, on the other, the risk of being subjected to spot checks, dreaded registered letters with acknowledgment of receipt that ask for clarifications on that exam, rather than on the drug. Hence the risk of what according to many is a double penalty: for undue prescription and for having caused damage to the regional treasury. From the specific problem, which concerns health for the people of Ovada, to the much broader game that is being played on the balance of the district which is being born. With the only certainty that a territory with a much higher number of inhabitants than ours, the Acquese, will certainly try to make this argument weigh in its favor
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