Impact of the First Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Acquisition of Goods and Services in the Italian Health System

Martina Capuzzo, Gian Luca Viganò, Cinzia Boniotti, Lucia Maria Ignoti, Claudia Duri and Veronica Cimolin
Additional contact information
Martina Capuzzo: ASST Spedali Civili di Brescia-UOC Ingegneria Clinica, 25123 Brescia, Italy
Gian Luca Viganò: ASST Spedali Civili di Brescia-UOC Ingegneria Clinica, 25123 Brescia, Italy
Cinzia Boniotti: ASST Spedali Civili di Brescia-UOC Ingegneria Clinica, 25123 Brescia, Italy
Lucia Maria Ignoti: ASST Spedali Civili di Brescia-UOC Ingegneria Clinica, 25123 Brescia, Italy
Claudia Duri: ASST Spedali Civili di Brescia-UOC Ingegneria Clinica, 25123 Brescia, Italy
Veronica Cimolin: Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, 20133 Milano, Italy

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 4, 1-17

Abstract: The emergency caused by the escalation in the COVID-19 pandemic, which became widespread starting on 31 January 2020, put a strain on the Italian National Health System and forced purchasing centres to deviate from the ordinary general principles dictated by current legislation. The aim of this paper is to describe how Spedali Civili Hospital in Brescia challenged the crisis, structured itself optimally, followed simplified procedures, launched new processes, and opened up more Intensive Care Unit beds to accommodate the high number of COVID cases. From an analysis of the equipment variation in terms of increased purchases, subsequent installations, and tests carried out compared with the pre-pandemic period, we report the difficulties that hospitals had to face in the first phase of the pandemic and how they were able to respond to their needs. Our data clearly displayed how the pandemic situation led to a deep internal reorganisation and that the drafting of simpler, effective, and adaptable procedures represents a first key element to ensure receptivity and responsiveness in the management of ordinary and non-ordinary events such as this pandemic condition.

Keywords: COVID-19; procedure; purchasing; PPE; emergency management; crisis; supply chain management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/4/2000/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/4/2000/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:4:p:2000-:d:746693

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().