ABSTRACT
Day hospital (DH) activity may avoid in-staying of patients resulting in an increase of efficiency and in a more satisfying diagnostical-therapeutical process for the patient. All the same, it is quite difficult to identify parametres and indicators to be used in the evaluation and quantification of DH, so that both scientific literature reporting experiences and law are lacking. One of the reasons is probably due to the lack of nosological characterization of patients and protocols of DH activity, so that the definition relies only on organizational and technical parameters. Characterization of protocols of intervention is the basic approach to the present DH investigation. Parameters such as: multiplicity of services, weekly planning of the activity and surveillance needed by the patient are considered the fundamental criteria to identify and quantify DH in the present research carried out at the University Regional Hospital of Pisa. The aim of this article is, on one side, to give a methodology of investigation based, as far as possible, on "explicit" indicators and parameters, so that the experience may be exported into other contexts and on the other, to give an example of resource analysis and efficiency evaluation which were internally used for "audit" review.
