Since 2012, personalised surgery has been used in the hospital's Maxillofacial Surgery, Neurosurgery and Traumatology departments for the treatment of complex pathologies such as tumours and deformities. Our implementation of the 3D-LAB project offers a comprehensive service under a common framework based on personalised surgery that allows for more precise and safer surgeries with more predictable results. This improves resource management and fosters research and innovation.

Personalised surgery techniques enable more efficient and safer surgeries, through the use of surgical devices and prostheses that are tailored for each patient. They provide geometrically complex structural reconstructions, using computer design and manufacturing techniques and CAD/CAM technology, which improve surgical precision and the quality of reconstructions while reducing the amount of time employed.

A personalised, comprehensive and digital service

This comprehensive personalised surgery service is offered through the Office for Surgical Planning and 3D Design (3D-LAB) at the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital.

It is here that 3D prosthetics and implants are designed and the precision of the surgical technique used is evaluated. Only the 3D printing and production stage are outsourced.

To ensure an efficient, safe and high-quality implementation, the service combines new digital and 3-D printing technologies.

The next four years are expected to see this department treating some 660 patients, mostly for tumours, injuries, infections and congenital defects relating to the specialities of Maxillofacial Surgery and Neurosurgery as well as Traumatology and Orthopaedics, Spine Surgery and Rehabilitation, for patients requiring the amputation of a lower limb and subsequent distal load-bearing implants.

This project was launched in 2018 and will have been fully implemented by 2022.

As a leading hospital complex, we maintain a commitment to patients based on transparency, active risk management and a rapid response should an incident arise. 

In this context, the Safety Commission is working towards a Safety Model centred around patients and professionals, guaranteeing that it will:

• Propose and prioritise strategies in the area of safety of patients and professionals
• Promote improvement actions related to the safety of patients and professionals
• Be responsible for monitoring indicators of the safety of patients and professionals and evaluating the results

The patient is just as important as the professional caring for them. For this reason, we join forces in risk management throughout the whole healthcare process to maximise benefits and minimise injury. With this intention, we supervise and adapt care teams to detect risks during handovers (shift changes, duty changes). We bring together care teams to share patient information and encourage notices as a method of risk and incident communication.

Besides this, in order to learn from our mistakes, we monitor the results of safety issues through a series of indicators (both for patients and professionals) and apply proposed improvements according to the results. Treating professionals fairly implies, among other things, providing training on an ongoing basis. We therefore have a training programme to provide an adequate response individually and collectively.

Finally, looking to the future, we are preparing ourselves for the implementation of telematic notification of complaints and incidents detected by patients. Their opinion is essential to improve the organisational structure and the scope of the measures in our security model.