Access and triage processes have been improved at the G. Pascale IRCSS National Cancer Institute Foundation through a set of measures and technological tools that help ensure sanitation. This was the goal of the Doctors with Africa CUAMM project that officially launched today but has been active for several months through the IRC 19 project “Italian Response to Covid19: Improving governance and community preparedness for a resilient society (IRC19)”, supported by USAID, the United States Agency for International Development.
Two years of the pandemic have made the health system have to handle a sudden, unexpected emergency. But the lessons learned from the pandemic experience have inspired new organizational models for patient management and for making major improvements to hospital facilities. For instance, the Pascale Foundation Institute has installed 11 PASS devices (Protected Access Security System) that can verify and perform all steps of checking those entering the facility, including the proper use of masks and taking the body temperature, as well as the sanitization of hands and shoes; the automatic counting of entrances and exits, with the option of stopping access once the maximum number of people has been reached, and checking body temperature from the palm of the hand by using a sensor with integrated infrared technology.
Attilio A. M. Bianchi, Director General, G. Pascale Foundation Institute: “I would like to thank USAID and Doctors with Africa CUAMM from the bottom of my heart for supporting this important project in both organizational and technological terms. Safety and living with Covid happen by implementing operations that are increasingly shifting from being extraordinary to have to become part of our regular processes.”
Leonardo Miscio, Health Director, G. Pascale Foundation Institute: “Protecting the safety of our patients and healthcare professionals has always been at the core of our organizational processes since the start of the pandemic. Thanks to our work with Doctors with Africa CUAMM, the control procedures at the entrance to our institute have now been automated, which lets us free up human resources for direct assistance for our patients. We would also like to give a heartfelt thanks to USAID (United States Agency for the International Development), which not only financed the purchase of triage equipment but also organized classes to train the staff to handle the emergency’s acute and successive phases.”
Don Dante Carraro, Director of Doctors with Africa CUAMM: “We are very happy to be here at the Foundation G. Pascale Institute in Naples, for the final stage of a major program through which CUAMM has helped support 19 health facilities in 11 Italian regions, during the pandemic’s acute phase. All this was possible thanks to the IRC19 project, funded by USAID (United States Agency for International Development). Our heart and our commitment are in Africa, where we have been for over 70 years, working in eight sub-Saharan countries at all levels of the health system. As soon as the pandemic broke out, we immediately acted to make our staff and hospitals in Africa safe. At the same time, we also rolled up our sleeves to do our part here in our country where the virus struck very hard. In Africa, as in Italy, we work side by side with local doctors and health workers, aware that only qualified, competent, and motivated human resources can make the difference for patients and create resilient systems. Now we are working on two main goals: training local human resources and the vaccination campaign in Africa. ”
Mary Avery, Consul General of the United States in Naples: “We are proud, as the American government, to have supported Doctors with Africa CUAMM and helped them to complete a practical project like this one, working with an excellent health institute in Campania, the Pascale Institute. Through their participation in the COVID-19 Global Action Plan, the United States and Italy are still committed to intensifying their efforts and improving coordination with other international partners to together achieve our primary goal, ending the acute phase of the pandemic by 2022.”
USAID (United States Agency for International Development), which funds IRC19, is the U.S. government’s leading development organization, active in more than 100 countries.
This press release was made possible thanks to the generous support of American citizens through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The content is the responsibility of Doctors with Africa CUAMM, recipient of the Fixed Amount Award (FAA) No. 7200AA20FA00013 and does not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States government.
