Second class of d·HEALTH Barcelona fellows now in hospitals
<p>Hospital Sant Joan de Déu and Hospital Clínic are once again collaborating with Biocat by hosting clinical immersions in the second edition of the program</p>
The second edition of Design Health Barcelona (d·HEALTH Barcelona) kicked off in September. This is the first postgraduate program in biodesign offered in our country, promoted by Biocat with the aim of fostering healthcare innovation, entrepreneurialism and professional development in the biomedical arena.
This year’s class is made up of eight fellows with backgrounds in design, engineering, economics and the life sciences. According to the program’s academic director, Jorge Juan Fernandez: “It is a great group of individuals: smart, talented, and ambitious.” Fernández is sure that “It is going to be (again!) a terrific year!”
Right now, the fellows are deep into their clinical immersion, spending seven weeks at a hospital with doctors, nurses and patients, observing medical visits and surgical procedures and participating in other activities involved in the healthcare process. Four of the fellows are in the obstetrics unit at Hospital Sant Joan de Déu in Barcelona, and the other four are in the gastrointestinal surgery unit at Hospital Clínic. The observations they make over this period will be the foundation for the groups’ invention and development of innovative, feasible solutions that can be taken to market in the future.
The hospital immersion phase, and the rest of the phases of the program, are combined with classes, MOOCs and workshops given by more than 50 global experts, including Dan E. Azagury (Stanford University, USA), Yossi Bahagon (Clalit Health Services, Jerusalem), Chia Hwu (Qubop, Silicon Valley), David Maltz (Novartis, Silicon Valley), Lekshmy Parameswaran (Fuelfor, Barcelona-Singapore) and Alfons Cornella (Infonomía, Barcelona), among others.
Fellows from the d·HEALTH class of 2013-14 identified nearly 1,400 unmet clinical needs, 40% of which offered business opportunities. One of these is now a reality: usMIMA, a company set up in October by one of the three groups of fellows.
More information is available in the press release.
Read more about d·HEALTH Barcelona in the news on Moebio.