Protocol of acceptance, execution and management of positive Covid-19 patient in Interventional Radiology at the AORN Sant’Anna and San Sebastiano of Caserta

Abstract

The Covid-19 emergency required healthcare facilities to redesign the care pathways in order to avoid the spread of the pandemic. Interventional Radiology which carries out an essential activity in a high specialty hospital environment is exposed at the forefront in all those minimally invasive diagnostic-therapeutic procedures in election and urgency. It was therefore necessary to apply, on the basis of the National, Regional and Company directives, a specific protocol to the patients belonging to the Hospital. A series of procedures have therefore been applied, ranging from acceptance, preparation, pre and post-treatment interventional to reduce the infectious disease risk. However, this protocol is burdened by higher costs due to the increase in PPE to be used and the multiple disposable covers to be placed on screens, medical devices, worktops and angiography equipment. Furthermore, considering the overall times of a procedure, therefore also including the sanitization times of the facilities and the room, there is an evident increase in the room engagement times and the technical difficulties, obviously all this is in favor of the absence of infection of the operators.