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Editorial

Hospitals: A Journal Title with Many Meanings and One Vision

1
Department of Health Surveillance and Bioethics, Section of Legal Medicine, Fondazione Policlinico A. Gemelli IRCCS, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 00168 Rome, Italy
2
Precision Vaccines Program, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA
3
Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
4
Section of Criminal Law, Department of Juridical Science, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 20123 Milan, Italy
5
Section of Forensic Medical Sciences, Health Sciences Department, University of Florence, 50134 Florence, Italy
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Hospitals 2024, 1(1), 1-2; https://doi.org/10.3390/hospitals1010001
Submission received: 21 October 2022 / Accepted: 1 November 2022 / Published: 9 November 2022
“Hospitals” as a name for a journal might appear simply as an umbrella term for healthcare-relevant research. It is certainly an inclusive and ambitious choice of title. We aspire for Hospitals to be a melting pot, and a home for all researchers interested in improving and innovating hospital policies, governance, and services, and empowering patients. From patient safety to hospital governance, from surgical simulation to employee management, from autopsies to implementation of artificial intelligence, from hospital virtopsy to assessment of medical devices, and from medical malpractice to risk management, papers on biomedical, medico-legal, economic, and legal aspects of hospital functions will be warmly welcomed.
We acknowledge that some may be skeptical of a journal with such a broad scope. We are confident that this effort will be of great value to many fields, and we will work diligently to make Hospitals (ISSN 2813-4524) [1] a meaningful and sound reflection of current issues and innovations in hospital care and management.
COVID-19 has radically changed healthcare, forcing hospitals to reorganize services and to find new tools to enhance safety of patients and providers [2]. At the same time, it has led to new economic, legal, and medico-legal issues that concern both healthcare institutions and professionals [3]. Despite negative aspects of the so-called “paperdemic”, the unprecedented and kaleidoscopic research interests that have developed during the pandemic have stimulated the debate over under-investigated yet fundamental issues, such as the importance of clinical autopsies to distinguish those who have died from infections versus with infections. Moreover, the pandemic has stressed the importance of a careful evaluation of medical, legal, socio-economic, and ethical issues related to healthcare technologies. Personal data in medical records have been shared for public health purposes on a massive scale, challenging the traditional balance between public interests and individual rights [4]. We have seen that the pandemic has raised new challenges and introduced new methods to deliver healthcare, while also obscuring some issues. For instance, especially in the first phase of the pandemic, hospital admissions due to acute cardiac conditions or interpersonal violence decreased, endangering fundamental rights of every person [5,6].
The core research area of our journal will be patient safety and hospital management of clinical and medico-legal risks. This covers a wide range of potential topics: promoting compliance with evidence-based standards; implementing health technology; assessing new methods to enhance safety; balancing the prevention of medical malpractice claims and patients’ rights; the early identification of at-risk patients; the cost-effectiveness analysis of hospital policies; and the discussion of legal and economic principles of general interest for hospital management. Hospitals is determined to cover them all with research articles and studies that are impactful, rigorous, and informative.
The journal is open access, and each submitted paper will be reviewed by selected peers efficiently and objectively. The editorial board will be multidisciplinary, reflecting the diverse and wide potential audience of the journal. We are committed to make Hospitals a journal of high impact and remarkable international reputation. Therefore, we will be grateful and delighted to receive and review papers of all kinds (e.g., original research, systematic/scoping/narrative reviews, case reports) that convey innovative and appealing content. Our suggestion to potential authors is to prioritize the translational value of their research, attempting to challenge the status quo in hospital care and management.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

References

  1. Hospitals Home Page. Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/hospitals (accessed on 21 October 2022).
  2. Ozonoff, A.; Schaenman, J.; Jayavelu, N.D.; Milliren, C.E.; Calfee, C.S.; Cairns, C.B.; Kraft, M.; Baden, L.R.; Shaw, A.C.; Krammer, F.; et al. Phenotypes of Disease Severity in a Cohort of Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients: Results from the IMPACC Study. EBioMedicine 2022, 83, 104208. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  3. Nicola, M.; Alsafi, Z.; Sohrabi, C.; Kerwan, A.; Al-Jabir, A.; Iosifidis, C.; Agha, M.; Agha, R. The Socio-Economic Implications of the Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19): A Review. Int. J. Surg. 2020, 78, 185–193. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  4. Oliva, A.; Grassi, S.; Vetrugno, G.; Rossi, R.; della Morte, G.; Pinchi, V.; Caputo, M. Management of Medico-Legal Risks in Digital Health Era: A Scoping Review. Front. Med. 2022, 8, 821756. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  5. Araiza-Garaygordobil, D.; Montalto, C.; Martinez-Amezcua, P.; Cabello-Lopez, A.; Gopar-Nieto, R.; Alabrese, R.; Almaghraby, A.; Catoya-Villa, S.; Chacon-Diaz, M.; Kaufmann, C.C.; et al. Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Hospitalizations for Acute Coronary Syndromes: A Multinational Study. QJM Int. J. Med. 2021, 114, 642–647. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
  6. Muldoon, K.A.; Denize, K.M.; Talarico, R.; Fell, D.B.; Sobiesiak, A.; Heimerl, M.; Sampsel, K. COVID-19 Pandemic and Violence: Rising Risks and Decreasing Urgent Care-Seeking for Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Survivors. BMC Med. 2021, 19, 20. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [PubMed]

Short Biography of Authors

Dr. Antonio Oliva is Professor of Legal Medicine at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Rome and in Milan (Italy) and Consultant in Legal Medicine and Member of the Board for the management of medical malpractice claims at the Fondazione Policlinico A. Gemelli IRCCS in Rome (Italy). He serves as advisor/medico-legal expert for many national and international entities (e.g., European Parliament, Criminal and Civil Courts of Rome, Public Prosecutor Office of Rome). His scientific research covers various aspects of patient safety and legal medicine, particularly focusing on risk management, post-mortem multidisciplinary investigation of sudden cardiac death and forensic use of PMCT.
 
Dr. Al Ozonoff is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, faculty scientist within the Division of Infectious Diseases at Boston Children’s Hospital, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Biostatistics at the Boston University School of Public Health. His scientific research is focused on development and application of surveillance methods in the fields of public health, healthcare quality, and patient safety. He also leads the Data Management Core for the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children’s Hospital. He holds advisory and consulting roles with state agencies including the Massachusetts Cancer Registry, the Massachusetts Office of Population Health, and the Massachusetts Bureau of Environmental Health.
 
Prof. Dr. Matteo Caputo is Professor of Criminal Law at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and Coordinator of the “Federico Stella” Graduate School of Criminal Justice in Milan (Italy). He is member of the Research center (Centro studi, documentazione e ricerca) of the Italian National Federation of Orders of Surgeons and Dentists (FNOMCeO) and member of the scientific committee of the Consumer and Health Engagement Research Center (Engage Minds—HUB) at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. He is a renowned expert in health law, patient safety and medical malpractice.
Dr. Simone Grassi is Assistant Professor of Legal Medicine at the University of Florence (Italy). He also is Consultant in Legal Medicine, Referee for Sudden cardiac death and Forensic radiology at the Forensic Pathology Unit and Member of the Board for the management of medical malpractice claims at the Careggi University Hospital (Florence, Italy). His scientific research is particularly focused on patient safety, management of medico-legal risks in hospitals, molecular autopsies and post-mortem imaging.
 
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Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Oliva, A.; Ozonoff, A.; Caputo, M.; Grassi, S. Hospitals: A Journal Title with Many Meanings and One Vision. Hospitals 2024, 1, 1-2. https://doi.org/10.3390/hospitals1010001

AMA Style

Oliva A, Ozonoff A, Caputo M, Grassi S. Hospitals: A Journal Title with Many Meanings and One Vision. Hospitals. 2024; 1(1):1-2. https://doi.org/10.3390/hospitals1010001

Chicago/Turabian Style

Oliva, Antonio, Al Ozonoff, Matteo Caputo, and Simone Grassi. 2024. "Hospitals: A Journal Title with Many Meanings and One Vision" Hospitals 1, no. 1: 1-2. https://doi.org/10.3390/hospitals1010001

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