[The chronically ill patient in the emergency department: management during simultaneous acute diseases]

The chronically ill patient admitted to an Emergency Department or to a Pediatric Emergency Unit for an intercurrent acute episode is rare but requires adequate management. Aim of this study is to evaluate the health care needs of these patients vs patients with exclusively acute disease and to underline the need of identifying criteria for health care taking into account basic clinical conditions. This study can be carried out most suitably at the Gaslini Institute, since it is a children's hospital with a Pediatric Emergency Department admitting children from the Liguria region presenting almost the whole range of chronic pediatric diseases.