We are a leading healthcare campus encompassing all fields of health: from healthcare and research to teaching and management.
Professionalism, commitment and research by professionals on the Campus are the key elements in offering patients excellent care.
We are committed to research as a tool to provide solutions to the daily challenges we face in the field of medical healthcare.
Thanks to our healthcare, teaching and research potential, we work to incorporate new knowledge to generate value for patients, professionals and the organization itself.
We generate, transform and transmit knowledge in all areas of the health sciences, helping to train the professionals of the future.
We are defined by our vocation for communication. We invite you to share everything that happens at Vall d'Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus, and our doors are always open.
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We have received recognition such as the Prize for Professional Excellence, awarded by the Barcelona College of Physicians (COMB) in 2012, and the TOP 20 IASIST award 2009, a Spanish award for the best Pneumology Department in Spain in the area of Respiratory and Thoracic Surgery.
At the Radiation Oncology Department, our goals are to help improve all aspects related to the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, teaching and research of cancer. We are a central plank in organising care for patients with cancer, especially with regard to radiation oncology. Working in multidisciplinary teams helps improve the healing rates of our patients, and makes us a reference department across Spain.
We have the most advanced technology in Europe. Techniques such as image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT) and intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) mean we can provide more precise treatments by adapting the dose to the shape of the tumour to better protect healthy tissue.
These advances are especially relevant for paediatric radiation therapy, since precision strategies are even more important in children. We treat 80% of children in Catalonia, as well as handling complex cases from elsewhere in Spain.
Technological development has allowed us to improve the whole process of planning and treatment using radiation.
The Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy Programme (IMRT) and the Stereotactic Radiosurgery/Radiotherapy Programme (SRS) were both started at the Hospital's Radiation Oncology Department in 2008. Initially, IMRT was used to treat prostate tumours, and later for the treatment of cancer of the breast, head and neck, and paediatric tumours. It is now also used in gynaecological and digestive tumours, and we are able to apply it in all cases where it might represent a significant improvement in treatment.
We are the centre that performs most treatments using intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) in Catalonia for genitourinary pathologies, tumours in the head, neck and breast neoplasias, where advanced technology has been fully integrated to improve care.
Our dedication to offering quality and safety in care has made us pioneers, as we have established various internal control committees, as well as developing our own protocols for image guided radiation therapy (IGRT). We are a young, dynamic team that is part of a range of scientific organisations, both nationally and internationally.
The goal of the Infectious Diseases Department is the prevention, control and treatment of these diseases, through three main areas: care, teaching (both undergraduate and postgraduate), and research (between the Vall d'Hebron Hospital and the Autonomous University of Barcelona).
At the Infectious Diseases Department, our care is structured into the following areas: hospitalisation, outpatient care, nosocomial infection control (infections contracted during a hospital stay), prevention and treatment of infection in HIV- immunodepressed patients (with solid or haematological neoplasia, bone marrow transplant or solid organ); international health and imported infections, and the HIV+ patients ward.
Our Department handles approximately 10,000 outpatient visits a year. There is also a day hospital where all types of prolonged antimicrobial treatments can be carried out, as well as a large number of diagnostic tests, in order to reduce hospital admissions.
In the hospitalisation division, between 550 and 600 patients are admitted a year, with an average hospital stay of about nine days. We admit immunodepressed patients with serious infections or requiring clinical isolation, as well as patients with serious infections that can be helped by our specialised care.
The priorities of the nosocomial infection control division are to identify and reduce the risk of transmission of especially complex infections and to ensure effective treatment. This latter aspect is key across all of the Department’s areas of care. Antimicrobial treatments are complex and one of the main responsibilities of the group is to ensure that they are administered as accurately as possible. To this end we are careful to constantly carry out a cost-benefit assessment.
Monitoring of infection in immunodepressed patients, both for HIV and others, is handled by two wards that treat patients with especially complex, serious infections, bearing in mind the type of infection and number of patients being treated at the Hospital. We aim to provide comprehensive care, handling prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infectious pathologies, especially opportunistic infections, that this type of patients suffer. One example is the Anal Dysplasia Unit in the HIV+ population, inaugurated in 2009 for the prevention, diagnosis and early treatment of anal cancer secondary to chronic infection by the human papilloma virus.
The international health and imported infections division, which works in coordination with the Tropical and Imported Diseases Unit of the Drassanes primary care centre and various local NGOs, is dedicated to providing overall care for patients affected by these infections. Thanks to telemedicine, we make regular contact with the regional Nossa Senhora da Paz Hospital in Cubal (Angola) to carry out joint sessions.
The Infectious Diseases Department was created in 1996 and consists of 14 doctors on staff, with resident doctors, predoctoral and postdoctoral doctors carrying out research and other key healthcare professionals all a part of its structure. The main characteristic of the Department, therefore, is our transversality. We firmly believe in the importance of having members of the Department collaborate with the different medical and surgical teams of the Hospital, both in terms of healthcare and research.
The portfolio of services offered by the Infectious Diseases Department responds to the health needs of the population and the demand for services generated at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, guaranteeing accessibility, equity and quality of care, in a way that satisfies the expectations of the clients following the strategic lines of the Catalan Health Institute.
These wards are used to treat patients with systemic infections acquired in the community, including:
Sepsis and primary bacteraemia
Zoonoses with organic complications
Parasitosis requiring hospital admission
Febrile syndromes of unknown origin with severe systemic repercussions
Organospecific infections requiring hospital admission due to systemic or organic repercussions
This area cares for patients with infections acquired in the community, offering treatment with acute clinical symptoms.
This area covers:
This is a specific clinic included in the Pere Virgili Health Park, integrated into the policy for treatment of the HIV positive population.
This area handles patients with any type of systemic or organospecific infection, nosocomial or acquired in the community, whichever part of the body is affected and in immunocompetent or immunodepressed hosts, whatever the cause. It includes the differential diagnosis of community and nosocomial febrile syndrome.
Includes the following activities:
The Infectious Diseases Research Group (coordinated by Dr Benito Almirante) of the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute carries out clinical research that is closely linked to the care we provide, and which groups together the various Research Areas. We should also highlight our animal experimentation laboratory, within the Vall d'Hebron University Research Institute, which allows us to experiment and obtain results using various animal models, with the ultimate goal of trying to improve the prognosis of various serious infectious pathologies in humans. The current lines of research are:
These lines of research are externally funded through research projects funded by the pharmaceutical industry or by public entities, as well as receiving funding as a member of thematic cooperative research networks organised by the Carlos III Health Institute (REIPI and RIS).
Teaching represents a major part of the Department's activity. We collaborate and foster basic and continued training for students, professionals undergoing training (resident doctors) and predoctoral students in the area of knowledge of infectious diseases. This work is carried out both as part of hospital work and in academic and research activity.
It includes the following activities:
At the Psychiatry Department, our mission is to serve as the reference health care resource in the Barcelona Nord healthcare district for people with mental health problems and addictions. We offer a comprehensive service that is both effective and efficient, based on the professional quality of our staff, our modern facilities and coordination with all the mental health resources in the sector.
We currently have 10 beds in the Hospital, and thanks to a collaboration agreement with San Rafael Hospital, we also have an Integrated Adult Psychiatry Unit (UIPA), with 41 beds to admit acute psychiatric patients from the Barcelona Nord healthcare district.
Our goal is to lead the way in the design, study and research of more effective and efficient ways of addressing mental illness. We have created a model for the treatment of disruptive behaviours that is based first and foremost on the continuous advances made in neuroscience, clinical psychology and psychiatry regarding the knowledge of how the human brain works, and secondly on continuity of care throughout the whole therapeutic process.
We have four outpatient clinics (adults, addictions, children and adolescents and traumatology) and a Psychiatry Emergency ward with six bays, part of the A&E Department of the General Hospital:
On the other hand, we also offer suprasectoral programmes for the diagnosis and treatment of highly complex patients who are unable to receive adequate treatment at their centre in the Mental Health and Addiction Network of Catalonia.
The Heart Failure Unit was created in 2009, based on the collaboration between the Cardiology and Internal Medicine Departments. It is made up of cardiologists, internists, specialists in geriatrics and emergency services. Heart failure is the fastest growing heart disease in our society.
Heart failure is the leading cause of major hospitalisation. The ageing population and improvements in medical procedures are both factors that mean several forms of heart disease (valvular, coronary and hypertensive) end up going beyond acute phases and result in heart failure.
Though the mortality of patients during hospitalisation is not very high (4.7%), it is worrying that, once they have been discharged, the rate of readmissions and morbidity and mortality are high (50% mortality 18 months after discharge).
Our basic objectives are, on the one hand, to improve the quality of life of patients with heart failure, reducing the number of admissions, readmissions and trips to the Emergency Ward, and, on the other, to apply a protocol for medical action. This involves optimising care resources and thereby reducing the financial impact of the disease. It also means incorporating the latest technologies, depending on the needs of each patient.
The opening of a day hospital has been key. Its functions are: to monitor all patients discharged from the Hospital having suffered heart failure, once the criteria for entering the Programme have been met; to make it easier and faster for patients to access the Unit in case of decompensation or acute episodes, eliminating barriers to access. Communication with the consultation and advice line has also been improved, along with drop-in services during office hours at the day hospital, both for patients who are within the Programme and their relatives and the professionals from primary care centres.
Finally, the Unit offers an open outpatient clinic for patients who have been discharged from the Hospital as well as for those who can be referred to primary care centres, to see either doctors or nurses. The doctors: perform a rapid diagnosis of heart failure syndrome, optimise treatment and monitor patients admitted or patients attended to at the day hospital. The nurses: educate patients and their relatives in the standards of care for patients with heart failure and provide regular home and telephone contact.
As heart failure is a condition that transcends any single health field, and the Hospital is just one of the ingredients in addressing this type of patient, a Heart Failure Group has been created for this catchment area, known as the Muntanya Primary Care Department, which structures the care provided for these patients in seven basic levels that are organised as follows:
The Dialysis Unit at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital is a reference centre for four haemodialysis centres managed by DIAVERUM, with an approximate total of 380 patients in haemodialysis.
This Unit is located on the sixth floor of the General Hospital, and currently has eleven haemodialysis stations, with five points in the Positive Unit and six points in the Negative Unit, to offer dialysis for patients with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) on haemodialysis (HD) with an ultrapure water plant with double reverse osmosis.
Plans are in place for a redesign of the floor where the Dialysis Unit is located, with 14 haemodialysis stations with beds for chronic patients (approx. 40 patients). This will mean we can admit more patients while offering 2 haemodialysis points for patients with hepatitis B virus.
We give nutritional and diet support to hospitalised patients across all clinical departments at the Hospital, and carry out follow-up monitoring at outpatient care for those patients who need it. We also provide outpatient care for patients referred from other healthcare areas of the Hospital and primary care centres that require specialist nutritional and dietary support. Patients requiring nutritional support are treated at the Horta Primary Care Centre. We actively collaborate in educational programmes to detect nutritional problems and for home monitoring of enteral nutrition, that is, feeding via a tube.
As a transversal unit, we support the General, Maternity and Children’s and Traumatology, Rehabilitation and Burns Hospitals, as well as the Primary Care Office in Sant Andreu; we also collaborate with a range of different medical and surgical specialties. We also participate in and direct a number of joint protocols with various other areas of the Hospital, and we maintain a very close working relationship with the Pharmacy Department, both in developing artificial nutrition and in selecting nutritional products. We act together with the Biochemistry Department in monitoring the nutrition of patients and in pursuing lines of research. We also provide support for the Pere Virgili Health Park.
We work to educate patients and family members, as well as providing courses for our staff through our continuing education programme, and we collaborate on continuing education in primary care. We organise training courses for primary care nursing staff, nursing staff from the Hospital and our orderly staff. We also educate patients and relatives about managing enteral nutrition, parenteral nutrition, as well as nutrition in cases of nephrology and inflammatory bowel disease.
During a hospital stay, the nutrition support we provide might cover:
Once a patient has been discharged, we continue to monitor nutritional treatment through:
In short, we prepare diets for hospital patients, always taking into account menu alternatives, menus for treatment and diet changes depending on patient cycles. We work together with the Catering Unit to organise and prepare the hospital’s catering operation.
Finally, we also take care of preparing and distributing baby bottles, baby food and special liquid meals for healthcare units, as well as collecting and cleaning utensils.
Our teaching work includes:
The Urology Department is a reference centre in complex pathologies for Catalonia and the rest of Spain. Headed since 2020 by Dr Enric Trilla, the Unit’s aim is to integrate care, teaching and research. Over recent years, we have incorporated the most modern, least invasive surgical techniques, such as laparoscopic surgery and robotics (Da Vinci).
Our Department comprises various different units each with their specialities.
Prostate Pathology Unit
Renal Pathology, Retroperineal and Kidney Transplant Unit
Urothelial Tumours Unit
Lithiasis Unit
Andrology Unit
Functional Vesicular Pathology and Neurourology
Over the last fifteen years, we have put significant efforts into translational research in order to apply knowledge gained from basic research to the prevention and treatment of clinical cases, within the framework of the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR). This is why we have several research programmes of recognised international prestige. The result of this commitment to research is the transfer of knowledge in the form of publications and patents.
At the Urology Department, we are committed to training graduates and postgraduates from the Faculty of Medicine of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, as well as training medical residents to be specialists in our field. Since 1973, we have trained more than sixty specialists, distributed throughout Spain and other countries.
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