November 2015 – AQuAS Blog

10 years of Catalonian Register of Arthroplasty (RACat)

26 Nov

Olga Martínez-Laia Domingo Olga Martinez and Laia Domingo. Evaluation Area, AQuAS

The Catalonian Register of Arthroplasties (RACat) was set in motion in 2005 as an initiative of the Catalan Health Service (CatSalut), the Catalan Society of Orthopaedic and Traumatology Surgery (SCCOT) and AQuAS (at the time, the Agency for Information, Evaluation and Quality in Health).

Thus, a population register designed to assess the hip and knee arthroplasty effectiveness and safety, was born offering insights into the hospitalizations variability, the procedures and models used for arthroplasty, the survival of the implanted prosthesis and implants traceability and creating indicators for assessing the quality of health care (performance and benchmarking).

Different international previous experiences pointed to the fact that the existence of arthroplasty registers has contributed to reducing variability and improving the effectiveness, safety and quality of arthroplasty¹. This fact, coupled with the growing need to respond to several research and clinical management questions highlighted the need to set the RACat in motion. Continue reading →

COMSalut (Community and Health: Primary and Community Care)

19 Nov

Andreu Segura, Secretary of Catalan Public Health Interdepartmental Plan

Soon we will celebrate thirty years from the first international conference on health promotion held in Ottawa. Some of its most popular recommendations are the appeal of reorienting health services and the need for individuals and communities to take control of their own health determinants -they have taken responsibility.

Both proposals are at the root of the COMSalut project and its most direct antecedents, such as the Interdepartmental Plan of Public Health (Pla Interdepartamental de Salut Pública – PINSAP), one of the innovations of Catalonia Public Health law of 2009, which emphasized the impact that various sectors of society and public administration have on health and, consequently, recognized them as key elements of health policies and, therefore, the health plan. A health plan that, with respect to the health system, promotes the development of organizational formulas and the funding of the services most consistent with the community dimension and the cooperation between providers, such as territorial pacts for managed care groups (MCG) from CatSalut. Continue reading →

The need of bioinformatics within the health system

12 Nov

Ana Ripoll, President of the Bioinformatics Barcelona Association – BIB

We live in a society that is able to generate massive amounts of data in seconds. In fact, it has been estimated that in two days we generate as much data as we did since the birth of civilization to the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003. The health system is no exception in the age of large data, now that the available data come from a variety of sources, such as electronic health records, laboratories, medical imaging systems and medical notes. In addition to these more traditional sources, we can add the data generated by the patient through electronic monitoring devices in real time, mobile applications, social networks or patients’ forums. Currently these data are scattered, disconnected, in various formats, and even in some cases without digitizing, and thus it’s difficult to process and to analyze. Extracting the valuable information all this data contained in the health system will help increase biomedical knowledge so we can advance towards a personalized, participatory, predictive and preventive medicine. Continue reading →

We need to speed up innovation in health

5 Nov

Manel Balcells, Department of Health Commissioner at LEITAT Technology Centre

One of the challenges of any country relying on a knowledge economy is undoubtedly to look at innovation as a strategic element for the country’s growth and development, and to manage to turn innovation into economic value. That is to say, to return the benefits derived from investments conducted in basic and applied research, back to society.

However, any country prioritizes productive sectors which provide significant benefits, promoting the conditions that make the so called innovation – ecosystem possible, thus completing the value chain from research to market.

Back home in Catalonia, we are well aware of the detachment between the high level of biomedical research – leader in Europe with global significance (you can view the results of the centres in the report from the Central de Resultats) and the moderate degree of innovation reflected by European standards and published by the European Commission in the Regional Innovation Scoreboard. Continue reading →