The Independent Research Center of the Italian Society of Internal Medicine (CRIS) has, as its statutory mission, the organization of epidemiological investigations, surveys, observational or intervention studies in the field of internal medicine. “Among the aims of the Center – explains Professor Antonello Pietrangelo, director of the Independent Research Center of the Italian Society of Internal Medicine (CRIS), past president of SIMI and full professor of Internal Medicine, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia – in addition to that of scientific and professional updating, there is the ethical and formative one of a research of significant cognitive impact, conducted with great methodological rigor “. A proactive role that SIMI, through CRIS, also wants to assume with respect to the country’s health policy as an independent research manager, aimed at acquiring ‘evidence’ and ‘real-life’ data on large sections of the population. “The longest running CRIS project – continues Professor Pietrangelo – is the REPOSI (Polytherapy Register of the Italian Society of Internal Medicine), launched in 2008 as part of a collaboration between the Italian Society of Internal Medicine, the Pharmacological Research Institute Mario Negri IRCCS and the IRCCS Ca ‘Granda Foundation Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico of Milan. The main objectives of REPOSI are the recruitment, monitoring and study of hospitalized elderly patients “.
REPOSI has allowed the collection of data from almost 9 thousand patients hospitalized in over 100 internist and geriatric wards, with an average age of 80 years, affected in more than half of the cases by 5 or more chronic diseases and that in 65 percent of cases take 5 or more drugs. The main results have been published in over 70 scientific papers in peer-reviewed international journals, which have contributed to providing indications for evaluating and improving prescribing appropriateness and obtaining real-life indications on the impact of poly-pharmacotherapy in different clinical fields ( diabetes, heart failure, COPD, atrial fibrillation, infectious diseases, just to name a few). The data collected were also used by AIFA for the preparation of the Report on ‘The use of drugs in the elderly population’. “More recently – continues Professor Pietrangelo – important studies have been produced thanks to the creation of the Italian Network of Internal Medicine, a digital network that has put 165 SIMI hospital centers online. Among these, the SIMI-Covid, a study on more than 3 thousand Covid patients hospitalized and managed entirely in the Internal Medicine wards during the pandemic emergency, which made it possible to identify the pre-hospitalization factors, at the time of admission to the hospital. or during hospitalization, which negatively affect the prognosis of chronic, multipathological and frail patients, the population most affected by Covid-19. Other important studies are currently at an advanced stage, including SIMI-NUTRO, which evaluates, in a multidimensional context, the prevalence of malnutrition and the impact on hospitalization and in-hospital outcomes, and SIMID, which studies prevalence and clinical and prognostic consequences of iron deficiency in patients hospitalized for heart failure and COPD, two very prevalent and disabling pathologies in hospitalized frail patients “.