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According to the progressive increase in the number of medical records checked by the Agenzia di Tutela della Salute (ATS) of the Metropolitan City of Milan, the San Raffaele Hospital established a Unit supporting healthcare personnel in clinical documentation management. Therefore, in 2003 the Servizio Valutazione Appropriatezza della Documentazione clinica (SVAD), consisting of a nursing staff highly qualified in checking the appropriateness of clinical pathways, completeness and correctness of the clinical documentation and appropriate coding in the hospital discharge cards, was set up in the Health Directorate. Since 2018, the Service has seen an increase in resources, a re-organization and integration with the Operating Units. The aim of the article is to describe the introduction of a new organizational model and the results obtained, with reference to the quality self-control carried out for the ATS. In order to conduct a descriptive analysis of the trend, the sample data, required by the ATS in the three-year period 2018-2020, stratified by outcome and consequent percentage of reduction on the reimbursement of hospitalization, were considered. We observe an overall percentage increase in medical records without any reduction from 2018 to 2020, going from 84% to 94% (+ 10%); at the same time, there is a constant trend of medical records with complete curtailment between 2018 and 2019, while there is a reduction between 2019 and 2020, going from 4% to 2% (-2%). The positive results demonstrate the essential role of SVAD and consolidate an alternative career for nursing staff.

Health care assessment is a very relevant process in health services organization. Despite home care appears to be a very important tool in health care delivery system, its impact has been only rarely evaluated in this country. The observational study we performed in the ASL Città di Milano on patients affected by ictus cerebri was aimed at addressing some questions in order to assess whether services can be delivered more cost effectively. We chose to look mainly at the effectiveness and cost of services for the people in need and their caregivers selected in two years time. The results are showed according to different patients' profiles and precocity of recruitment. Their analysis shows that further improvements can still be made in order to achieve a better tailored profile of delivery. Moreover it can be seen how the burden of costs still falls largely on families and caregivers. The study can be seen as premises for further analyses as well as a follow up intervention.