The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) treats 1,200 of the most complex critical patients every year. Additionally, the Department supports other serious patients not in the ICU but who require assessment from specialists in intensive care medicine.

The Intensive Care Medicine Department leads many hospital programmes, such as: Code Sepsis, care for cardiorespiratory disease and the ECMO programme, and collaborates actively in the Organ Donation and Transplant Programme.

We also bring together different professional groups (doctors, nurses, administrative staff, orderlies, cleaning staff, etc.), resulting in a multidisciplinary department in which teamwork is essential. Our goal is to humanise the ICU to make it an environment in which professionals, families and patients are comfortable.

 

Research

The Intensive Care Medicine Department has its own research group at the VHIR Research Institute, in the area of Infectious Diseases: the SODIR Research Group (Shock, Organic Dysfunction and Resuscitation).

The SODIR has 2 areas of research:

1. Critical Patient Sepsis and Infections Research Division, which includes research into: sepsis, septic shock and infections in critical patients.
2. The Organic Dysfunctions and Resuscitation Research Division pursues research into: acute respiratory insufficiency, lung transplants, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), neurocritical pathology and critical renal pathology.

SODIR has created a Clinical Research Unit to take part in clinical trials sponsored by the industry, and supports competitive research projects. The Unit is made up of nurses and doctors dedicated exclusively to clinical research, and currently has 11 active clinical trials.

 

Teaching

Teaching activity at the Intensive Care Medicine Department encompasses the teaching of undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing training of professionals in treating critical patients. We have been accredited to train 3 residents in intensive medicine annually. We organise several yearly courses, such as: Ventilung, Ecolung, ECMObarna and SedUCI.

The Vall d'Hebron University Hospital's Paediatric Department includes various sections and units from specific paediatric areas (paediatric subspecialities):

 

• Palliative Paediatric Care
• Paediatric Endocrinology
• Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Nutritional Support and Paediatric Hepatic Transplants
• Paediatric Hospitalisation and Hospital Paediatrics
• Infectious Diseases and Paediatric Immunodeficiencies
• Paediatric Neurology
• Paediatric Pneumology and Allergology
• Emergency Medical Service (EMS) - paediatric transport
• Paediatric Emergency Care

 

The Paediatric Department staff includes 52 specialist paediatric doctors to help provide the care, teaching and research the department is responsible for. It also has the necessary nursing and administrative staff, as well as assistants who help with our research and social work and much else. The 60 paediatric residents in their specific areas receive training and take part in care during their time in the various units within the department.

 

Portfolio of Services

We provide care for all types of paediatric patients, from infants to adolescents, with acute and chronic paediatric diseases corresponding to the areas mentioned above. You can find more information about each specific section and unit on their respective web pages.

 

Education and Training

There are 60 paediatrics residents at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, totalling 15 per year. In recent years, Vall d'Hebron Paediatrics has consolidated its position as the number 1 destination for new resident doctors, and obtained the best results of all hospitals in Spain in the 2017 medical exams.

The Paediatric Department is responsible for significant teaching activity as part of the Autonomous University of Barcelona medical degree, with a paediatrician professor, three professors certified by the Spanish National Agency for the Evaluation of Quality and Accreditation (ANECA) and a professor accredited for advanced research by the Agency for the Quality of the University System of Catalonia (AQU), together with six associate medical professors.

The Paediatric Department also teaches Masters courses in paediatric subspecialities: Paediatric endocrinology, infectious and immunodeficiency diseases, paediatric neurology and paediatric pneumology and allergology.

  

Research 

The Paediatric Department's research is among the most important on the Vall d’Hebron campus, with specific lines that are listed in the individual descriptions of the Sections and Units concerned.

Ours is a transversal department, meaning we collaborate with many other medical and surgical departments at the Hospital. Our ability to provide support in all healthcare areas guarantees coordinated care for patients throughout their stay. We are a reference centre in Catalonia for various highly complex processes (spinal cord injury, acquired brain damage, spina bifida, burns) and we also engage in teaching and research.

At the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Department, we collaborate directly with various other medical and surgical departments at the hospital and share multidisciplinary patient care units. We are involved in virtually all units that deal with rare illnesses.

At our Department, in addition to doctors specialising in physical medicine and rehabilitation, we also have physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, auxiliary technicians in nursing care, monitors and administrative staff. Teamwork is the defining feature of our specialty. Our multidisciplinary rehabilitation team also includes specialised nursing staff, an orthopaedic technician and a social health worker.

Our cross-cutting department consists of two main areas of care, community and tertiary: we assist patients in our catchment area but also those from elsewhere who need highly specialised care. We work in an acute hospital where increasingly complex cases are handled, and we aim to adapt to ensure hospital stays are as short as possible.

At the Neurorehabilitation Day Hospital, patients who have a neurological disability and need comprehensive rehabilitation treatment can receive it in a single place, and, if they do not require nursing care, they can sleep at home.

Our Department works in three main areas: Osteoarticular, Neurorehabilitation and Specific Pathologies.

 

Portfolio of services

Osteoarticular

• Spina bifida, congenital malformations that affect the spine, and Rett's syndrome in adults, and disorders of the nervous system that cause problems in the development of children.
• Osteoarticular rehabilitation (traumatology, orthopaedics and vertebral deformities)
• Vertebral Pain and Deformities Unit

 

Neurorehabilitation

• Officially accredited as a CSUR centre of reference (Reference centres, departments and units), the Spinal Cord Injury Unit is a reference centre in Catalonia and the rest of Spain for the treatment of people who have suffered spinal cord injuries. We offer comprehensive care in cases of acute and subacute spinal cord injuries. We offer physiotherapy, occupational therapy, sphincter re-education, infiltration treatment with botulinum toxin, risk assessment of injuries caused by a blow or by diseases, assessment of support for sitting independently.

• Neurological rehabilitation. We offer comprehensive, intensive care, where required, to patients with strokes, cranial traumatism or acquired brain damage in general. We offer treatments involving physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, swallowing disorders and neuropsychology. At the Day Hospital, we provide neurorehabilitation (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, swallowing disorders and neurorehabilitation). We apply rehabilitation techniques using virtual reality, and offer infiltration treatments using botulinum toxin.

• Child rehabilitation. We treat patients with neurological pathologies (caused before, during or after delivery), medical or traumatic pathologies, muscular pathologies, tumoural or orthopaedic pathologies, and multilevel surgery. We offer multidisciplinary care with neonatology, neuropaediatrics, neurosurgery, orthopaedic surgery, nutrition and neuropsychology. We have physiotherapy, occupational therapy and neuropedagogy, and we apply infiltration treatments with botulinum toxin. We have a Marfan Syndrome Unit.

 

Specific pathologies

• Cardiorespiratory rehabilitation (in adults and children). We offer respiratory rehabilitation with a special emphasis on the programme for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), lung transplants, cardiac rehabilitation for acute coronary syndrome and heart failure.
• Pelvic floor. Care for mixed and urgent urinary incontinence, both in men and women, and individual treatment with instrumental techniques and exercises.
• Phoniatrics, speech therapy and swallowing disorders. This is the only unit of its kind in the public health system in Catalonia that covers all pathologies of language, voice, speech and hearing, as well as swallowing disorders. We perform early detection of childhood hearing loss in high-risk infants with the collaboration of the Otolaryngology Department (ENT) and the Neurophysiology - Evoked Potentials Department for children. Checks and monitoring of children with hearing loss, prescription of hearing aids, relationship with CREDA and participation in the rehabilitation programme for cochlear implants, to stimulate the auditory nerve, with the Otolaryngology Department (ENT). We use videolaryngostroboscopy and instrumental analysis of the voice.
• Burn rehabilitation. We offer comprehensive care to burns patients in close collaboration with the Burns Unit, part of the Plastic and Repair Surgery, as well as for transplant patients. Physiotherapy and occupational therapy.
• Rehabilitation of amputees. We provide care for amputees, of both upper and lower limbs, with the most appropriate, functional prostheses, and offer training in how to use them, both for children and adults.
• Rehabilitation in breast and lymphoedema pathologies. We provide comprehensive care for oncological patients, both during and after surgery to see how patients recover. We offer physiotherapy with techniques involving pressotherapy, manual lymphatic drainage, multi-layer compression, individual and group kinesiotherapy, Nordic walking and open group follow-up. We treat lymphoedemas, which are disorders of sensitivity, both in the upper limb and in the lower limb.
• Rehabilitation of facial paralysis. We offer care for peripheral facial paralysis of various causes from the acute phase, with physiotherapy and botulinum toxin infiltration techniques, where appropriate.
• Haemophilia rehabilitation unit. We offer specific care for patients with haemophilia or coagulopathy with multidisciplinary checks. We place special emphasis on prevention and/or treatment of joint conditions with haemophilia arthropathy.
• Rehabilitation of balance disorders. We apply specific physiotherapy treatment techniques, both individually and in groups.
• Unit for Assessment Tests Using Instruments. Functional respiratory tests, effort tests, isokinetic exercise analysis, gait study and vestibular tests (for balance disorders).

Our mission as a paediatric ICU is to take care of children's health, through effective, efficient and quality health care in the treatment of diseases.

More specifically, our objectives are:

• To provide the best care for children with serious illnesses, using diagnostic, therapeutic and rehabilitative techniques.
• To advance knowledge of clinical paediatrics and the treatment of children in critical condition through scientific evidence, our expertise and professional qualification.
• To guarantee the best possible diagnostic and therapeutic methods. To achieve this, we have a staff of highly trained professionals.
• To collaborate in the postoperative management of cardiac surgery, lung transplants and pulmonary arterial hypertension; we provide care to any patient from Catalonia or from other regions of Spain.

To achieve these goals and treat children with specific illnesses and different physiological conditions, a highly qualified team and innovative technology are essential for us to adapt to the reality of each specific case.

Paediatric Intensive Care professionals require specific training. All our staff are highly qualified to recognise signs of serious conditions and the complications that might go with them, as well as being able to decide the correct doses for treatments. The combined expertise of our team is the key behind the prestige the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit enjoys internationally.

The Paediatric ICU is open to families. Not only do the parents and children accompany their baby, but so do the brothers and sisters through the Siblings Project, a pioneering project that began in 2014 at the request of a child who wanted to see his brother who had been admitted.

Both families and patients can benefit from the Sol Solet Programme, where we organise an ICU outing to sunbathe as a family. Nothing is left to chance on these outings.

Our Paediatric ICU came to life in 1968, and was the first in Spain. Nowadays, it is a specialised area where we have the most innovative technologies to allow us to apply advanced therapies for children who need specific life support treatment. 

 

Portfolio of services

• Postoperative management of patients who have undergone: cardiac failure, cardiac surgery or liver, lung, heart or kidney transplant
• Support with blood flow and absorption of molecules
• Invasive and non-invasive conventional mechanical ventilation
• High-frequency oscillating ventilation
• Continuous veno-venous haemofiltration in critical patients with liver, respiratory or renal failure.
• Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation technique (ECMO) for cardiovascular and respiratory support, in cases where conventional treatment is ineffective
• Resuscitation and treatment of serious burns (burned surface >= 20%)