1723P Organizational challenges and oncological activity volumes during the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic peak in Verona, Italy

Background: On February 23rd the first case of SARS-CoV-2 infection was diagnosed at the University Hospital Trust of Verona, Italy On March 13th, the Oncology Section was converted into a 22 inpatient beds COVID unit and we had to reshape our organization and personnel to face the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, while maintaining our oncological activity Methods: We tracked down oncological activity from January 1st to March 31st, 2020, in relationship to the organizational changes implemented and in comparison to the same period of 2019 We also recorded cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections observed in oncology health professionals and hospital admissions of active oncology patients for SARS-CoV-2 infection Results: Progressive restrictions in patients', visitors', and caregivers' access to the inpatient and outpatient facilities of the Oncology section and organizational changes were adopted early on during the epidemic peak Since March 13th, segregated personnel teams were created, one dedicated to the COVID unit and a "clean" one dedicated to oncological patients, resulting in an overall 40% and 43% reduction in oncology-dedicated medical and nursing/auxiliary staff, respectively As compared with the same trimester in 2019, the overall reduction in total numbers of inpatient admissions, chemotherapy administrations, and specialty visits in the period January-March 2020 was 8%, 6%, and 3%, respectively;based on the weekly average of daily accesses, reduction in some of the oncological activities became statistically significant from week 11 Patient's acceptance of adopted measures was very high (see abstract by Tregnago D) Overall, 8/85 (9%) health professionals tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (no hospital admissions and no treatment required) and 7/525 (1 3%) active oncology patients were admitted for SARS-CoV-2 infection (of whom, 2 died of infection-related complications) Conclusions: A minimal (<10%) reduction in Oncology activity was registered during the peak of SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Verona, Italy Organizational and protective measures adopted appear to have contributed to keep infections in both health professionals and oncological patients to a minimum Legal entity responsible for the study: University of Verona Funding: Has not received any funding Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest