by The Vall d’Hebron Hospital and the Barcelona North Primary Care launched a program of redistribution of patients who served for reduce the frequency of hospitalizations by approximately 350 complex cases, who, because of their pathologies, are admitted several times a year.
The ‘counsellor’ of Health, Manel Balcells, presented this Wednesday the program of coordination between Vall d’Hebron Hospital and Barcelona Primary Care, currently deployed in the North Barcelona Health Zone.
Balcells pointed out that one of the challenges of the system is that “fortunately there are more and more citizens who are aging” and, for this reason, they accumulate diseases that can frequently decompensate, which often leads them to have to be hospitalized several times a year.
The purpose of the program is that these patient profiles don’t end up being admitted to the hospital because in another level of care, they are given preventive control.
To achieve this goal, Vall d’Hebron coordinates with other devices in the area so that part of these complex patients are controlled at an intermediate level, that is to say with more capacity to treat complexity than primary care, but without being a hospital.
This is the case of the Comprehensive Support Team for Complexity (ESIC) of Casernes in Barcelona, which has ways and the ability to check regularly these patients to avoid decompensation and even have a space to enter, if necessary.
Six months ago, Vall d’Hebron selected for this program 350 patients, who suffer andchronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart failure, diseases that are more common in the elderly and that lead to frequent hospitalizations.
The patients
Among the selected patients, some entered more than three times a year and, in some cases, up to nine. Of these 350 patients, over the past six months “50% were admitted to hospital” thanks to the application of the new program, underlined the deputy director of Vall d’Hebron, Maria Jose Abadias.
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One of these patients is Grace, 82 years old, who after several admissions to Vall d’Hebron told him to go straight to ESIC Barracks every month for checks.
“Every time I go to the doctor, he weighs me, he tests me and depending on how he sees me, he gives me the treatment and the tablets, and since I arrived at the ESIC, I haven’t gone back to the hospital’s emergency room,” rejoices the patient.
