TITLE:
Private First Aid Facilities in Italy: A Retrospective Analysis on 800 Consecutive Accesses in a Single-Centre
AUTHORS:
Aurelio Sessa, Claudia Soldati, Laura Formenti
KEYWORDS:
Healthcare Access, Private First Aid, Inappropriate ED Use
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Emergency Medicine,
Vol.14 No.4,
November
13,
2026
ABSTRACT: Private First Aid Facilities (PFAF) are becoming increasingly widespread across the national territory. The decision to use these facilities is driven primarily by the desire to resolve health issues quickly and by the feeling of being looked after a fast personalized care pathway. The services required correspond to mild or moderate clinical conditions, classified under white and green triage codes, which account for approximately 70% of Emergency Department (ED) visits and contribute significantly to ED overcrowding. This retrospective single-centre study analyzes 800 consecutive visits to a PFAF and it shows that 40% of patients are over 65 years old and that the clinical areas most frequently involved are traumatology (38.3%) and internal medicine (32.8%). Clinical issues falling within the fields of cardiology, pulmonology and gastroenterology account for nearly 50% of the internal medicine caseload. The speed of the diagnostic and therapeutic process is considered one of the service’s strengths. Visits concluded within two hours of admission in 665 of 800 cases (83.1%). The average costs of a diagnostic-therapeutic pathway in the field of trauma-orthopaedical area are 265 euros, while for the internal medicine are 238 euros. PFAF can help relieve congestion in public ED.