Territorial medicine. Calabria “trailblazer”: the continuity units of general medicine are born

Green light of the Regional Council to the law establishing (the only region in Italy) the Uca. They will help to contain the recourse to hospital admissions, also in consideration of the persistence of Covid-19. By 30 September, the Region will adopt a specific address document for the confirmation or change of the location of the Continuity of Care Units, in consideration of the different needs expressed by the territory. The law then intervenes on Healthcare Trusts to give them entrepreneurial autonomy, thus conforming to national legislation.

07 LUG – The Usca have retired, but the Calabria Region has decided not to put this experience on the back burner, but to institutionalize it and make it fully operational, establishing the Uca, Continuity Welfare Units, through a new law, already approved. by the Council, which establishes its institution and mission, attributing the adoption of guidelines to the Commissioner ad acta.

The Uca will have the task of “allowing general practitioners or the pediatrician of free choice or the continuity of care doctor to guarantee ordinary care and limit the use of hospital emergency rooms, also in consideration of the persistence of Covid-19 “. One will be activated for every 50,000 inhabitants, within the continuity of care services of the structures of the provincial health authorities also for the home management of patients suffering from Covid-19 who do not require hospitalization, in continuity of operation with the established special units of continuity of care that have operated until 30 June 2020.

The Uca, for the moment, will therefore represent a sort of continuation of the Usca, but their experience will not necessarily remain at Covid. The law provides, in fact, that by 30 September 2022 the Region adopts “a specific guideline to confirm or change the location of the Continuity of Care Units, in relation to the different needs expressed by the territory”.

The law then intervenes to remedy some regulatory contradictions in Calabrian healthcare, for example where it assigned to healthcare companies a managerial and but not entrepreneurial autonomy, which is now acquired, also for Azienda Zero. Furthermore, amendments to paragraph 1 of article 7 of regional law n. 11, in order to add to the bodies of health companies the “board of directors” which the previous law had not taken into account.

07 July 2022
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