«Rather than a “Symphony” we should talk about an “off-key agreement”, a plan that left out hundreds of outpatient specialists, making the monitoring and care of Covid and suspected Covid patients ineffective».
Gabriele Peperoni, vice president of SUMAI ASSOPROF (the Italian Union of Ambulatory Medicine and Healthcare Professionals), denounces the failure to implement the operational protocol for home care for COVID-19 patients or those suspected of having COVID-19. This system was supposed to be integrated with the Sinfonia program, which provides for shared data management among the various entities in the regional healthcare system and a single control room. "According to the plan," Peperoni insists, "outpatient specialists should have had access to the Sinfonia e-Covid surveillance platform, but this never happened. The lists of healthcare professionals are provided by the local health authorities, which, as they have already done with general practitioners and pediatricians, enter them into the system. However, nothing seems to be moving, and in the meantime, patients are paying the price."
According to the Operational Protocol for Home Care for COVID-19 Patients or Suspected Patients, district outpatient specialists, appropriately identified by the directors of the health districts, should be able to provide consultations requested by general practitioners or the USCA (Health Care Units). This task should also be carried out by evaluating, where necessary, the possibility of home visits with appropriate PPE precautions and, above all, recording the outcome of the services on the surveillance platform. "The local health authorities," Peperoni concludes, "should guarantee the care activities identified in the framework established by the Region, employing all relevant professionals and deploying the necessary technologies. If this does not happen quickly, hundreds of patients affected by or recovering from COVID-19 will be managed in an approximate and fragmented manner, with all the resulting consequences. It is unacceptable that supplementary agreements regarding specialists, veterinarians, and outpatient professionals continue to be postponed due to the inertia of some regional officials."
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