[Evidence-based medicine. 3. Systematic reviews: a tool for clinical practice, permanent education and health policy decisions. Italian Group on Evidence-Based Medicine-GIMBE]. / Evidence-based medicine. 3. Le revisioni sistematiche: uno strumento per la pratica clinica, la formazione permanente e le decisioni di politica sanitaria. Gruppo Italiano per la Medicina Basata sulle Evidenze-GIMBE.

The reviews of research, summarizing a great amount of studies in a manageable format, are invaluable tools for physicians, inundated with enormous amount of biomedical information. However, narrative reviews are often misleading because, mixing together opinions of authors and results of research, the relation between clinical recommendation and evidence is partial and based on a biased citation of primary studies. In contrast to narrative reviews, the systematic reviews assemble, critically appraise, and synthesize the results of primary studies addressing a specific topic. Additionally their authors use strategies for minimizing bias and random error. The science of systematic reviews is now supported by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international network established for "preparing, maintaining and disseminating systematic reviews of the effects of health care". The authors provide tools for searching, critically appraising and using in practice the systematic reviews, which use can help physicians to improve the transfer of research in clinical practice, a task obliged by limitation of financial resources to physicians of any health service.

[Systems analysis in hospital management]. / L'analisi sistemica nella gestione ospedaliera.

Organization is one of the most important concepts for contemporary society. Whereas in recent years industry and the private services field have adopted management criteria to establish aims and methods, and to manage their organizations, the same is not true for public services. So in this area, particularly in health services, the need for a managerial type of organization is particularly evident. The basic change in the approach to the solution of organization problems, in accordance with a management type criterion, is the substitution of the traditional analytical approach with an assessment of systemic type that examines relations and interactions between the various components of an organization. Of the various methods proposed, one conceptual instrument that permits a management-type analysis of an organization is the "7S" method. An approach of this type may be particularly useful for the evaluation of an extremely complex structure like that of a hospital. According to this method, the interactions between strategy, structure, systems, staff, style, skills, and system of prevalent values of the hospital's organization structure are analysed with the purpose of improving their management.