Rucci, Paola http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7704-0831
Avaldi, Vera Maria http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0609-2439
Travaglini, Claudio
Ugolini, Cristina
Berti, Elena
Moro, Maria Luisa
Fantini, Maria Pia
Article History
First Online: 19 July 2019
Compliance with Ethical Standards
:
: The School of Health Policies, University of Bologna, and the Regional Agency for Health and Social Care of the Emilia-Romagna Region are partners—with the cooperation of the Local Health Authority of Parma—in a joint research project entitled “Economic evaluation of clinical pathways and prescribing appropriateness.” The three institutions have jointly contributed to the project with their own resources; the Agency for Health and Social Care assured the financial resources necessary for research assistant contracts and expenses directly attributable to the carrying out of the research.
: Paola Rucci, Vera Maria Avaldi, Claudio Travaglini, Cristina Ugolini, Elena Berti, Maria Luisa Moro, and Maria Pia Fantini declare that they have no conflict of interest in relation to the present work.
: The retrospective study was carried out in conformity with the regulations on data management with the Italian law on privacy (Legislation Decree 196/2003 amended by Legislation Decree 101/2018). Data were anonymized prior to the analysis at the regional statistical office, where each patient is assigned a unique identifier. This identifier does not allow others to trace the patient’s identity and other sensitive data. Anonymized regional administrative data can be used without a specific written informed consent when patient information is collected for healthcare management and healthcare quality evaluation and improvement (according to art. 110 on medical and biomedical and epidemiological research, Legislation Decree 101/2018).