Bellvitge University Hospital (HUB) has put in motion the Clinical Direction of the Department of Heart Diseases (AMC). This new clinical direction is made up of the Department of Cardiology, the Cardiac Surgery Service and the Intensive Care Unit of Cardiac Surgery, the last one as a functionally assigned unit (MICA). Dr Àngel Cequier is the clinical director.

The clinical directions are an organizational formula promoted by the ICS (Catalan Institute of Health) to speed up the decision making process, take advantage of the potential synergies among the various services, improve interaction in the activity of the different professional groups and encourage health integration of the area. At the HUB clinical directions are already under way in the Clinical Laboratory, the Department of Digestive Diseases, the Department of Respiratory Diseases, and it is processed but pending approval in the Department of Neurological Diseases.

Cardiology care is precisely the area where the organizational forms now known as clinical directions began to be developed a few years ago. This type of structure is appropriate for this area of care because it is a natural grouping from the clinical point of view, its disciplines have a physical and functional proximity and, despite their complexity, its processes do not depend on the central hospital services.

The strategic draft of the new clinical direction of the Department of Heart Diseases of the HUB consists of setting up an area of reference and vanguard in the territorial framework, which is patient-oriented and dedicated to the prevention, diagnosis and the treatment of heart disease, integrating care, teaching and research with the highest level of efficiency.

Some of its objectives are the optimization of diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, the creation of a system for monitoring care quality, to achieve the greatest employee participation and motivation and consolidate a physical structure suitable for these goals.

One fundamental line of work will be the promotion of new forms of organization based on patient-centered care, treatment processes and coordination between different levels of care.

Another essential objective is to give priority to the own high quality clinical research. In this sense clinical research in competitive fields and a better interrelation between lines of research will be boosted. Likewise, there will be a major professionalization of clinical trials. One of the priority research projects – and attached to this new area of medical care – is the Cardiovascular Research Laboratory. This lab, which will be inaugurated in the upcoming weeks, will be dedicated to translational research, mainly in the fields of platelet aggregation, lipids and anticoagulation.