Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
ICU admission of a relative is a stressful event for family members, something that may lead to high levels of distress throughout their relative’s hospitalization and cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological symptoms after the ICU [1].
Good communication between ICU staff and patients’ relatives is generally accepted to be a preventive factor of such problems, not only for patients’ physical and psychological health but also for the health of the patients’ relatives. It is the responsibility of healthcare professionals to ensure that patients’ relatives are informed about what happens during and after an ICU stay [2].
Anzeige
The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) [3] has created a global health crisis that has had a deep impact on the way we communicate with patients and their relatives in all the COVID-19 care settings, given the need to maintain isolation and social distancing [3, 4].
For this purpose, the SIAARTI (Italian Society of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Intensive Care) has released a guideline on how to communicate with families in isolation, which advises how to set up phone calls [5]: Family members must be given clinical information at least once a day, and more often in case of any substantial and unexpected deterioration in the patient’s condition. These daily communications must cover the diagnosis and prognosis. Information can be provided by any means (e.g., telephone, video call, or e-mail).
VICINO@TE is an Internet portal/app that makes it possible for family members to receive updates or request clinical information regarding their loved one, to see pictures or videos of them, and to send them messages full of support and love.
Using a web/app platform, a virtual ward has been created where each patient is assigned a bed. An e-mail requesting access to the service is sent to the contact person for the family member, which after its compilation, allows to identify and guarantee the adequate confidentiality of the information and the collection of the necessary consents. After these preliminary operations, the family member receives the access credentials to the platform which allow them to access their loved one’s information in complete safety. Subsequently, each patient can be associated with a space where multimedia content or written texts can be inserted by staff (photos or medical bulletins) or relatives (texts, photos, videos) as shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1
Screenshot of the app. a “Virtual” beds (examples) in which can be deposited written information (medical reports) and multimedia content, which can be either from the hospital workers or from families. b Example of a daily medical report. c The patient receives a printed copy of the letter that the family has written and deposited on the virtual bed
×
Anzeige
The service was made possible thanks to the availability of an IT company in Trentino and with the coordination by the Digital Administration Policies service. It is owned by the APSS which, upon request, can quickly grant it for free reuse or provided as a service to others healthcare companies.
Once the epidemic was over, we interviewed relatives of the patients by telephone regarding the satisfaction of the application. Out of the 63 patients hospitalized for COVID-19, it was possible to implement the application to 58 of them. Forty-six patients replied to the interview and 45 said they were satisfied, and 31 people appreciated the multimedia content (photos and videos) as well as the medical bulletins, but 14 underlined their preference for calls only.
Acknowledgements
None
Ethics approval and consent to participate
Not applicable
Consent for publication
Not applicable
Competing interests
None
Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Insektenstiche sind bei Erwachsenen die häufigsten Auslöser einer Anaphylaxie. Einen wirksamen Schutz vor schweren anaphylaktischen Reaktionen bietet die allergenspezifische Immuntherapie. Jedoch kommt sie noch viel zu selten zum Einsatz.
Schmerzen im Unterbauch, aber sonst nicht viel, was auf eine Appendizitis hindeutete: Ein junger Mann hatte Glück, dass trotzdem eine Laparoskopie mit Appendektomie durchgeführt und der Wurmfortsatz histologisch untersucht wurde.
Personen mit chronischen Rückenschmerzen, die von einfühlsamen Ärzten und Ärztinnen betreut werden, berichten über weniger Beschwerden und eine bessere Lebensqualität.
Derzeit wird empfohlen, eine Therapie mit GLP-1-Rezeptoragonisten präoperativ zu unterbrechen. Eine neue Studie nährt jedoch Zweifel an der Notwendigkeit der Maßnahme.
Update AINS
Bestellen Sie unseren Fach-Newsletter und bleiben Sie gut informiert.
