The second MIHealth Forum ends with the awards ceremony
The La Fe and Henares University hospitals and the Biodonostia Institute win the MIHealth Innovation Awards 2013
The projects presented by the La Fe Hospital Health Research Institute, the Henares University Hospital and the Biodonostia Institute have won in the three categories of the second MIHealth Innovation Awards 2013, through which the management & clinical innovation forum recognises the most innovative healthcare projects and the transformative spirit of healthcare professionals. The awards were presented during the closing ceremony of the second MIHealth Forum.
In the first category, Technology, the award went to the La Fe Hospital Health Research Institute for the HepaPlan project, a tool for planning and guiding liver biopsies that generates 3D images of this organ, which allows the surgeon to calculate parameters, such as number, size and volume of lesions, as well as their relative position in the liver. With this instrument, it will possible to carry out simulations on the percentage to be sectioned or preserved, very useful for surgeons when diagnosing, treating and planning surgeries.
Henares University Hospital took the award in the Organisation category Intensive Care Unit (ICU) without walls, a programme for early identification and treatment, in any care area of the hospital, of potentially acute patients who may need to be admitted into the ICU. Since its implementation, the hospital has achieved a high survival rate of patients who were involved in the programme; a low percentage of admittances in the ICU with the consequent improvement in resource management; an increase in availability of ICU beds for programmed admittances for high-risk surgery activity; a reduction in incidences of cardio-respiratory failure in the hospital; a reduction in the average stay and mortality of patients in the ICU; and a saving of 700,000 Euros.
In the third and last category (Knowledge), the winner was the Biodonostia Institute for its strategy of using ribonucleic acid fragments or microRNA as biomarkers in Multiple Sclerosis. The joint quantification of the presence in the blood of four of these microRNAs can be used within the strategy for diagnosing multiple sclerosis and could be used to obtain information on the effect of different medicines with which to treat this illness.
Mapping the future of Healthcare
The second MIHealth Forum was closed with the awards ceremony. The forum brought together around 900 professional visitors in the Palacio de Congresos from the fields of medicine, politics and industry while the ten Satellite Events, held within the setting of the forum, attracted around 700 attendees.
For three days, the symposium brought together seventy speakers of international renown who covered the challenges faced by healthcare systems in the near future; a future marked by a standstill in spending according to figures published by the Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económico (OCDE) in a 2013 report on national healthcare systems. According to the organisation, Spain is one of the few countries that have reduced their spending in healthcare two years in a row and, in 2011, invested 9.3% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) less than the 9.6% in 2010.
The attendees agreed that current healthcare systems could only be preserved and improved by through a combination of innovation, efficiency, utilisation of technological resources and a change in healthcare culture by professionals.
Barcelona, 28th June 2013