The Transplant Center is a shared and combined space for the coordination and strengthening of excellent practice in the area of organ donation and transplant. The prestige and potential that Vall d’Hebron has when it comes to transplants is proven, as it is the leader in transplants in Catalonia and the second biggest centre in Spain for organ and tissue donation and transplant.

The centre touches professionals, patients and the public. For the first group, the centre promotes coordinated action and collaboration. The project centres around constant improvement of clinical practice and facilitates coordination, be it between different centres and services or with different lines of research that are already researching and innovating in the field of donation and transplantation. It enables greater results orientation, while offering a space for teaching and research as instruments for continuous improvement and professional excellence.

It was conceived with the purpose of joining forces to be recognised as a leading and innovative centre for all types of transplant; a centre which helps solve patients’ problems and that stands out for the quality of its service and the excellence of its professionals. A place from which to lead, integrate and optimise organ and tissue donation and transplant processes across the whole of Vall d’Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus.

It attempts to do so by maintaining guarantees of maximum quality, safety and efficiency, with the aim of achieving a high level of health protection (donor/recipient) and an improvement in patient survival and quality of life (adult and paediatrics). At the same time, achieving this through integrated and multidisciplinary clinical practice that is orientated around the patient and their family.

The project also opens an arena for talking about this situation, to normalise donations and transplants and make this a visible process. Vall d’Hebron understands and assumes the responsibility for training professionals and patients, but above all informing citizens. Although the transplant figures in Catalonia are more than double the European average, one out of every seven cases of delay in organ donations is due to there being no match in the family. The commitment to explaining the work conducted in this field, informing society about the processes of donation and transplantation, helps to guarantee the sustainability of first-line programmes such as the Vall d'Hebron programme. In the field of professional training, transplant coordination has been a leader in training initiatives for many years, including patient education projects.

With the patient in mind, the integrating effect the Transplant Center has for professionals and its impact on the treatment that patients receive and their experience during the donation and transplant processes should be publicised. 

The Catalan Network of Oncology treats 60% of cancer patients in Catalonia. It is made up of the Catalan Health Institute (ICS) and the Catalan Oncology Institute (ICO). On the one hand, the ICS runs two large hospitals offering cancer care: Vall d’Hebron University Hospital and Arnau Vilanova University Hospital. The ICO, meanwhile, can be found in Hospitalet, with centres in Girona, Badalona, Camp de Tarragona and Terres de l’Ebre.

The Network was born from the desire to become a world benchmark against cancer. A benchmark for innovation, research and care in Europe and the world. The Catalonia Health Plan 2016-2020 defines cancer as one of the region’s health priorities. It establishes strategic alliances and resource concentration to strengthen networks between leading tertiary centres and hospitals in the territory.

The Catalan Network of Oncology care model works on the following lines:

• Frequent tertiary tumour programme: encompasses all care activity related to patients already diagnosed and the conventional therapeutic process.
• Rare tumour programme: therapeutic plan applied to patients with rare tumours
• Clinical research programme: includes all treatment within a clinical trial
• Palliative care: care aimed at improving the quality of life of people with cancer
• Associated Oncology Pharmacy Unit: improvement in the management capacity of the pharmacy, both in purchasing policies and in the management of service provision
• Hospital tumour register and information systems: integration of information from different centres with the aim of facilitating a shared information unit

This model is reflected in that of other world leaders in cancer treatment. It uses precision medicine, which allows for personalised treatment to be provided; and knowledge management, which facilitates data recording, the assessment of results and the transfer of information between professionals.