d·HEALTH Barcelona 2025 kicks off with new hospitals, content, and challenges in clinical innovation

The new edition of d·HEALTH Barcelona is now official. This health innovation program, organized by Biocat with the support of the Department of Health and the technological collaboration of Eurecat, adopts a hybrid, part-time model to better adapt to participants’ professional lives.

With this tenth edition, the program consolidates more than a decade of experience training professionals in healthcare innovation and biomedical entrepreneurship, reinforcing its position as a benchmark in Catalonia and Europe.

What’s new in 2025?

• Six collaborating hospital centers are maintained, with two new reference hospitals joining the program: Hospital Clínic de Barcelona and Hospital del Mar, adding to Bellvitge, Sant Pau, Sant Joan de Déu, and Hospital Trueta.
• The clinical immersion areas this year cover diverse fields such as neurology, thoracic surgery, pneumology, autism spectrum disorders, maxillofacial surgery, and sleep disorders, promoting greater rotation and diversity of clinical experiences.
• On the academic side, new modules are introduced on artificial intelligence applied to healthcare, sustainable entrepreneurship, and social impact of innovation projects, while Eurecat strengthens its role in technological validation and prototyping.
• The program started on September 22, 2025, and will conclude on June 3, 2026.

Structure and methodology

The 8-month hybrid program follows the key phases of the Biodesign methodology, combining theoretical training, clinical immersion, and teamwork:

1. Kick-off (September): program and methodology presentation.
2. Clinical immersion (October): two weeks on-site in the selected hospitals to identify unmet clinical needs.
3. Needs validation (November–January): teams filter and prioritize the identified opportunities.
4. Prototyping and business model (February–May): development of solutions, business model definition, and partial validations.
5. Graduation Week (June): final presentation of the projects before the innovation ecosystem (investors, professionals, and institutions).

Teams are composed of four participants from complementary backgrounds (health, engineering, design, and business) who work together to transform real observed needs into viable solutions with clinical impact.

The program also features an international team of experts and mentors from institutions such as MIT Catalyst, Stanford Biodesign, Analog Devices, EATRIS, and Eurecat, among others. Notable faculty members include Luis Soensken, Berta Martí, Emma Giner, Felip Miralles, Marta Arenas, and Jordina Arcal, who will guide participants throughout the process.

Clinical immersion: the starting point for innovation

After the first weeks of training, participants in d·HEALTH Barcelona 2025 began in October the clinical immersion phase in the collaborating hospitals. Over two weeks, teams observe hospital operations, interact with doctors, nurses, and patients, and identify up to two hundred unmet needs that will serve as the starting point for their innovation projects.

This stage also defines the teams and clinical work areas, which this year are distributed as follows:

• Hospital del Mar – Neurology Department
  Mentored by Dr. Pablo Villoslada, Head of the Nosocomial Infection Unit.
• Hospital Clínic de Barcelona – Thoracic Surgery Department
  Mentored by Dr. Anna Ureña and Dr. Ricard Ramos, specialists in thoracic surgery.
• Hospital Trueta de Girona – Pneumology Department
  Mentored by Dr. Marc Bonnin, Head of the Oncology and Pneumology Unit.
• Bellvitge University Hospital – Maxillofacial Surgery Department
  Mentored by Dr. Antonio Marí Roig, specialist in maxillofacial surgery and hospital innovation.
• Sant Joan de Déu Hospital – Autism Disorders Unit
  Mentored by Dr. Neus Elias Carbonell, expert in childhood neurodevelopmental disorders.
• Hospital de Sant Pau – Sleep Disorders Unit
  Mentored by Dr. Ana María Fortuna, specialist in pneumology and sleep medicine.

Over the past ten years, d·HEALTH Barcelona has trained dozens of professionals who now lead innovation projects in hospitals, companies, and health-tech startups, some of which originated within the program itself. The incorporation of new hospitals and immersion areas, together with updated content on technology and sustainability, strengthens Biocat’s mission to train professionals capable of developing high-impact solutions for the healthcare system and patients.