Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 reinfections in a Spanish region.

Objective: We aimed to assess the prevalence and clinical characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 reinfections in a Spanish region. Methods: This is a retrospective observational study in all patients with SARS-CoV-2 infections in the Lleida health region from 1 March to 30 November 2020. Reinfections were classified as patients with positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests separated by at least 90 days plus a negative test result between both infection episodes. Primary and secondary outcomes: The primary outcome was the percentage of SARS-CoV-2 reinfections among all SARS-CoV-2 infections detected during our study period. Secondary outcomes were the clinical and sociodemographic characteristics of patients with SARS-CoV-2 reinfections. Results: Of the 27,758 patients diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection in the study period, 14 were identified as coronavirus reinfection (0.050%). Of the reinfected sample, 12 patients (85.7%) were women. The median age was 41.5 years. Two patients died in the second coronavirus episode. Conclusion: The reinfection rate of SARS-CoV-2 in the Spanish region Lleida was relatively low during the observational period in 2020 (less than 1%). These data are in line with the notion that previous SARS-CoV-2 infections may offer a significant protection by so called natural immunity.

Quality of care indicators for a resuscitation unit: A descriptive study and proposal.

There are lack of indicators of quality of care in resuscitation units of emergency departments. With the aim of proposing a series of indicators to evaluate the quality of care delivered in hospital resuscitation areas, we conducted a descriptive study of 7579 admissions to the resuscitation unit of an emergency department at a Spanish hospital between 2012 and 2016. The proposed indicators were the percentage of patients attending to the emergency department admitted to the resuscitation area by level of triage, the length of stay, the percentage of patients moved to intensive care and surgery at disposition, the mortality in the area or in the emergency department within 24 hours of disposition, and the data completeness. A majority of the patients (62.6%) were men and the median age was 68 years. Over 99% of the required data were recorded. Median length of stay in the resuscitation unit was 0.87 hours (interquartile range, 0.5-1.5). Approximately 80% of patients categorized as an emergency on admission to the emergency department were admitted to the resuscitation unit, although the proportion of urgency patients was higher. The main disposition destination was a trauma cubicle (82.3% of cases). Mortality was 0.41%.Specific indicators are needed to assess the quality of care delivery in resuscitation units. We believe that our findings will provide new insights into the work done to date in this field.