Montse Moharra (@mmoharra), Dolors Benítez and Anna García-Altés (@annagaal)
Students at the Pompeu Fabra University can respond to the challenges arising from the OIGS (Centre for Innovation in Health Management in Catalonia) innovation community
Over 600 health professionals met in Barcelona on Monday September 21st during the Third Edition of the Centre for Innovation in Health Management in Catalonia (OIGS), which was attended by the Minister of Health, Boi Ruiz. During the ceremony, 21 innovative experiences received the quality certificate.
The Minister welcomed the involvement of health professionals in “responding to our major concern, which is to improve healthcare” and gave “thanks to the people who believed that the best way to change things is do it from within.” It also found that OIGS is a project of “an extraordinary dimension” and that its current numbers (189 experiences and more than 500 users) denote its consolidation. He also stressed that in times of budgetary constraints, they are undertaking pioneering improvements in the health system to help improve the health care for citizens.
The event also served to present the latest OIGS’ developments, which has a “key role in offering visibility” for the experiences in Catalan health system management, as highlighted by the General Secretary of Health, Roser Fernández. Anna Garcia-Altés and Montse Moharra, OIGS’ responsible and respectively, coordinator, detailed on OIGS’ service portfolio with its encouragement projects and its challenges. They also revealed that OIGS will be present at international conferences next year to further its visibility.
During the event, three of the certified experiences promoted by the Catalan health care were presented. Ernesto Casis presented the case of the Automated Central Laboratory developed by the University Hospital Vall d’Hebron starting from merging of three clinical laboratories, an improvement which allowed advancing from 2,000 to 6,000 patients a day. The project, which has unified work criteria and has led to savings in several areas, has allowed the laboratory to become the largest in Spain and one of the largest in Europe. Worthy of mentioning is that a reference laboratory from the US has visited the lab of Vall d’Hebron to see how it works and implement it there.
Also, Graciela Martínez-Palli discussed the integration of the nursing team specialized in anaesthesia at Hospital Clínic. This project has given nurses more responsibility in the process of sedation, which were previously attributed to anaesthetists, a development that has significantly improved the centre’s anaesthesia service. “This experience should be universal in the hospital setting,” said Martinez-Palli.
Finally, Raquel Salas, from the Gerencia Territorial Metropolitana Sur of the Catalan Institute of Health, explained how the new protocols have advanced in the field of waste management in metropolitan area centres. Specifically, this system already operates in 70 primary care centres and 36 local offices and is a pioneer “for its centralized management and unification of criteria”, among many other aspects. The initiative has also improved the treatment of hazardous waste.
The ingredients for innovation
The event was also an opportunity to talk about innovation in general. Albert Serra, Director of Research and Development for large-format printing and 3D area at Hewtlett Packard detailed the basic ingredients for innovation, which according to him are “talent, technological innovation, customer knowledge and ability to adapt.” He also advised health professionals to encourage creativity from all levels of the organization and “not innovate for the sake of innovation, but only for what is worthwhile”.
Finally, Daniel Serra de la Figuera, Professor at the Department of Economics and Business at Pompeu Fabra University and dean of the Barcelona School of Management, spoke of the “challenge” as a learning tool: companies can forward “challenges” to UPF Masters students so these can write dissertations or solve “short problems” exercises. Soon, members of the OIGS community may submit their challenges to students who may come up with innovative solutions.
If you want to send your “challenges” UPF Masters students, you can do so through this webpage: http://oigs.gencat.cat/. We’re looking forward to receive your proposals!