One of the cornerstones for enhancing the patient safety culture is the incident reporting system (IRS). It is a process for detecting, reporting, collecting, and summarizing adverse events (AEs) and near-misses in healthcare, and so it represents a vital tool for clinical risk management. We analyzed the 5-year experience of a third-level hospital's IRSs, showing its trends and highlighting its main strengths and weaknesses. Patients’ falls and physical or verbal aggression toward the providers or between patients are the most reported events. Underreporting is the main limitation of the system, especially among nurses. Visible actions, forceful analysis of the reports, operators’ education, no-blame culture promotion, and organizational adjustments may improve operators’ adherence to IRS. Providers do not willingly inform patients’ relatives about fatal incidents. Despite that, the IRS is far from its potential, and the number of data collected has increased.
BackgroundIn the age of digitalization and big data, personal health information is a key resource for health care and clinical research. This study aimed to analyze the determinants and describe the measurement of the willingness to disclose personal health information.MethodsThe study conducted a systematic review of articles assessing willingness to share personal health information as a primary or secondary outcome. The review followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis protocol. English and Italian peer-reviewed research articles were included with no restrictions for publication years. Findings were narratively synthesized.ResultsThe search strategy found 1,087 papers, 89 of which passed the screening for title and abstract and the full-text assessment.ConclusionNo validated measurement tool has been developed for willingness to share personal health information. The reviewed papers measured it through surveys, interviews, and questionnaires, which were mutually incomparable. The secondary use of data was the most important determinant of willingness to share, whereas clinical and socioeconomic variables had a slight effect. The main concern discouraging data sharing was privacy, although good data anonymization and the high perceived benefits of sharing may overcome this issue.
Restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic might have changed recreational habits. In this study, the results of toxicological tests for alcohol and drugs in blood were compared among drivers stopped at roadside checks in the periods before (1 January 2018 to 8 March 2020) and after the lockdown measures (9 March 2020 to 31 December 2021). A total of 123 (20.7%) subjects had a blood alcohol level above the legal limit for driving of 0.5 g/l, 21 (3.9%) subjects tested positive for cocaine, and 29 (5.4%) subjects positive for cannabis. In the COVID-19 period, the mean blood alcohol level was significantly higher than in the previous period. Cannabis use, which was more frequent among younger subjects, was statistically associated with cocaine use. There has also been a quantitative increase in alcohol levels in the population with values above the legal limits, indicative of greater use of alcohol in the population predisposed to its intake.
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