RESUMEN
Today, social and healthcare systems at a global level are facing constant challenges dictated by an increasing mismatch between the demand for care services and the supply of human and economic resources. Such a situation has been exacerbated in the past two years by the Covid-19 pandemic. This has led to an increase in the leverage of digitalisation, which has proved to be a crucial tool for the development and application of new organisational models at both hospital and territorial levels, thus addressing the various criticalities already present in the system. In this sense, the Virtual Hospital has emerged as a potential model for increasing effectiveness and efficiency in delivering sociomedical services. Starting from these premises, an EFTE (estimate, feedback, talk, estimate) approach was used to acquire an expert consensus within a multidisciplinary panel of academics and healthcare managers of the Veneto Region in Italy. This article reports the expert opinion on the possible application of the Virtual Hospital model in the national context, starting from the existing international evidence and good practices, highlighting the potential advantages and barriers to its implementation. Furthermore, the article analyses the most relevant areas of investment for the development of intangible assets and the acquisition of tangible assets necessary for its implementation.
RESUMEN
Introduction: Pancreatic cancer requires a multidisciplinary approach in a high-volume center for all the steps of the diagnostic-therapeutic course. However, the most experienced centers are not evenly distributed throughout the country causing a real "health migration" that involves patients and families with relevant economic, time, and energy costs to bear. The COVID-19 pandemic had a deep impact on surgical and oncological care and the travel limits due to COVID-related restrictions, have delayed the care of cancer patient living far from the referral centers. In this scenario, several telemedicine approaches have been proposed to reduce the distance between clinicians and patients and to allow a fast and effective access to care even for patients distant from referral centers. The aim of the study is to analyze the evidence and describe the current utility of telemedicine tool for patients with pancreatic cancer. Methods: We systematically searched the literature in the following databases: Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, and MEDLINE. The inclusion criteria were article describing a telemedicine intervention (virtual visits, telephone follow-up/counseling, mobile or online apps, telemonitoring) and focusing on adult patients with pancreatic cancer at any stage of the disease. Results: In total, 846 titles/abstracts were identified. Following quality assessment, the review included 40 studies. Telemedicine has been proposed in multiple clinical settings, demonstrating high levels of patient and health professional satisfaction. Conclusion: Successful telemedicine applications in patients with pancreatic cancer are telerehabilitation and nutritional assessment, remote symptom control, teledischarge after pancreatic surgery, tele-education and medical mentoring regarding pancreatic disease as well as telepathology.
RESUMEN
Few evidences are present on the consequences of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on pancreatic surgery. Aim of this study is to evaluate how COVID-19 influenced the diagnostic and therapeutic pathways of surgical pancreatic diseases. A comparative analysis of surgical volumes and clinical, surgical and perioperative outcomes in ten Italian referral centers was conducted between the first semester 2020 and 2019. One thousand four hundred and twenty-three consecutive patients were included in the analysis: 638 from 2020 and 785 from 2019. Surgical volume in 2020 decreased by 18.7% (p < 0.0001). Benign/precursors diseases (- 43.4%; p < 0.0001) and neuroendocrine tumors (- 33.6%; p = 0.008) were the less treated diseases. No difference was reported in terms of discussed cases at the multidisciplinary tumor board (p = 0.43), mean time between diagnosis and neoadjuvant treatment (p = 0.91), indication to surgery and surgical resection (p = 0.35). Laparoscopic and robot-assisted procedures dropped by 45.4% and 61.9%, respectively, during the lockdown weeks of 2020. No difference was documented for post-operative intensive care unit accesses (p = 0.23) and post-operative mortality (p = 0.06). The surgical volume decrease in 2020 will potentially lead, in the near future, to the diagnosis of a higher rate of advanced stage diseases. However, the reassessment of the Italian Health Service kept guarantying an adequate level of care in tertiary referral centers. Clinicaltrials.gov ID: NCT04380766.