Start of the new edition of the d·HEALTH Barcelona program in its new part-time format in four leading Catalan hospitals

This change in format has meant that fellows -students, researchers and professionals- are offered a more flexible proposal adapted to their possibilities and needs. 

The sessions, inspired by the Biocat d·HEALTH Barcelona program, offers access to an innovative and enterprising environment, the validation of a clinical need not covered, training by experts from the sector, the design of a solution that improves the quality of life of patients, and the acquiring of the necessary skills to boost careers, such as the development of the business model in line with the market and presentation of the project to investors and professionals from the ecosystem.

All the participants will be grouped into multi-disciplinary teams of 3 or 4 people with whom they will prepare the clinical immersion, and will receive support and advice from experts from the ecosystem and training on preparing a pitch.
 

Clinical immersion to detect unmet clinical needs 

The program started with the clinical immersion phase: for two weeks, the four teams of fellows looked for unmet clinical needs in the four hospitals taking part in this edition:

• Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron, rehabilitation area -neurology sub-area-
   
• Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol, nephrology area -dialysis sub-area
   
• Hospital Universitari Bellvitge, neurology area, ictus sub-area
   
• Hospital Universitari Parc Taulí, oncology area, digestive sub-area, collaborating with the program for the first time.
   

Several program participants during the clinical immersion at the Parc Taulí University Hospital

Once this period of immersion and observation is complete, the multi-disciplinary teams formed by students and professionals of different, complementing profiles will begin developing technological solutions that could lead to a new product or service. The entire process is conducted using the disruptive methodology of bio.design created by the famous Stanford University.

During the different phases of the program, the fellows will work on the design, the prototyping, the business model, and the search for funding for the solution developed. Alongside this, they will acquire knowledge in medicine, medical techniques, business or skills in areas such as design thinking or creative leadership, with international experts and experts from the BioRegion.
 

Several program participants during the clinical immersion at the Vall d'Hebron
 

The four teams have valued this initial phase of the programme extremely positively, highlighting the major opportunity of a hospital immersion module such as this one, ‘the role of observers has provided us with a more rounded, holistic view of everyday operations in the hospital and with a direct insight into the different viewpoints of those involved in the different processes’ indicated the team placed at Parc Taulí Hospital. Those at Germans Trias i Pujol also underlined the importance of ‘understanding the different points of view of patients, doctors, nursing staff and relatives’ to be able to detect the different needs of professionals and patients. The support they received from professionals in different areas and departments of the hospital was key to realising how their vision of operations and decision-making within a hospital has changed, indicated the fellows at Bellvitge Hospital. In Vall d'Hebron, they also had the same sense of global vision-360 degrees that the immersion has given them: 'I am a health professional in the pediatric oncology area of ​​a hospital. I understand how the hospital works, how the healthcare staff work, but this immersion has allowed me to live with professionals from other areas, patients and their families and to have a greater capacity for empathy about the situation they live in and about the needs they may have.'
 

Several program participants during the clinical immersion at the Hospital Universitari Bellvitge

The fact that each team was trained by people with different professional backgrounds significantly improved the entire process ‘asking questions that might sometimes seem absurd because you’re not medically trained enables you to reconsider possible answers and alternative solutions’, said one of the members of the multi-disciplinary team at Germans i Trias Hospital. ‘Without a doubt, this immersion enables us to observe and share points of view with a multi-disciplinary team of experts from other areas, which is extremely valuable’ they highlighted from Bellvitge.