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Call center 93 253 21 00

Monday to Sunday, from 8 am to 8:30 pm

Scheduling or change of appointment +34 93 253 21 00

Monday to Friday, from 8 am to 7 pm

Private Care - International Patients +34 93 600 97 83

Monday to Friday, from 8 am to 7 pm

SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital

Passeig Sant Joan de Déu, 2, 08950 Esplugues de Llobregat

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The Patient Experience Area
Meeting with families on the Patient Experience programme

Patients and their families play a crucial role in the Hospital’s culture and strategy, as well as in leveraging transformation and change in the organisation.

Listening to patients as a guideline for leveraging transformation

In order to bring about this focus, experts in design thinking methods joined the Hospital in 2015. Later, they formed a team in the Quality and Patient Experience Department, which is spearheading this culture of the active involvement of patients and their families by working in partnership with healthcare departments, the nursing and medical teams, and other front-line workers.

The main aim of the Patient Experience Area is the co-creation of a care model and to bring about change towards a culture of continuous improvement, a process that entrails two main factors: empathy and design focused on people. 

The Department is made up of a team with a wide range of qualifications and additional training in fields such as anthropology, design and engineering, as well as work experience in different sectors that enable then to take on projects with a holistic approach, for which they work alongside the Processes Department and the User Service Department.

What is the patient experience at SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital?

The patient experience covers the sum of all the interactions between patients, families and the employees who take care of them, beyond the clinical and bio-medical needs of patients.

In order to focus on patients and their families, and to involve them in giving a suitable response to their needs, it is essential to understand their experiences and to assess our care model. Listening to them and understanding the critical points of their experiences provides us with transformative and strategic insights.

Methodological principles and focus

In order to change, improve and innovate the experiences of patients, their families and employees as a whole (in and outside the Hospital):

  • We combine different methods (design thinking, future thinking, agile thinking, etc.) inherent to design, processes, services and experiences.
  • We adopt techniques from the fields of the social sciences, psychology and medical examination, as well as creative processes to ascertain needs (pain points, barriers, needs, current and future aspirations).
  • We work on projects using co-design, experimentation and interaction.

Multidisciplinary methodological approach

We work using a process and methodological approach that melds lean management and design thinking by facilitating the interaction between patients and other stakeholders in the design of processes and the patient experience. The lean management approach focuses on fine-tuning processes and their feasibility, whilst design thinking explores and identifies the needs, questions, concerns and preferences of patients and their families.

What techniques do we use?

Depending on the type, the aims, scope and stage of a project, we use a combination of different techniques:

Interviews
Surveys
Narrative diaries
Observation
Journeys
Photographic diaries
Narrative videos
Focus groups
Co-creation workshops
Prototyping
Pilot testing
Brainstorming
Generative activities
Role-playing

The Department’s main metrics

29

Completed projects

408

Patients and families directly involved in projects

250

Patient and family interviews

103

Interviews with professionals

83

Observations to patients, families and professionals

63

Co-creation dynamics and focus groups with patients, families and professionals

12

Quantitative assessment surveys

Year 2023

Projects

The projects that we work on are carried out with the assistance of the internal processes and user service teams, thanks to infrastructures, systems, innovation, doctors and nurses, patients and families, and external experts. They cover a range of categories:

Some of our projects

The design of the SJD Pediatric Cancer Center Barcelona

Exploring the needs of users to help better define the design criteria for the new monographic paediatric cancer facility, the SJD Pediatric Cancer Center Barcelona.

More information
Neonatal Unit Revamp

Assessment of the current situation in the Neonatal Unit to develop a strategy that will allow us to establish which improvements can be made to the design and layout of the unit.

More information
New onboarding process for new staff members

To measure the experience of professionals joining the Hospital in order to identify possible opportunities for improvement.

More information
Adaptation of the Adult Hospital Transition Programme

How was the transition programme to the adult hospital adjusted to the needs and requirements of patients and their families?

More information
Empowerment strategy for patients with sickle cell disease

Taking into account the views of sickle cell disease patients and their families/caregivers through a design thinking process.

More information

Testimonials

As a mother and family of a child with JIA, the fact that your referral centre contacts you to listen to you and learn about your situation, and to do so with dynamics where the child and the family are always the protagonists, means that coming to the Hospital is not just a routine check-up but a process of learning, accompaniment and recognition of the reality we live in.

Margarida Torras Badosa mother of a patient with juvenile idiopathic arthritis

We are increasingly interested in incorporating the voice of our patients into the care model. The Haemophilia Unit has participated in a project with Patient Experience that has allowed us to better understand the concerns and needs of patients and their families and to improve care processes, work spaces, and to devise training in congenital coagulopathies.

Rubén Berrueco Head of the Paediatric Haematology Department

As paediatricians, we are aware of the importance of being sensitive to the needs of children, adolescents and their families, and working with them to offer the best possible care. Working with Patient Experience allows us to deepen this relationship and detect unmet needs.

Jordi Anton head of Rheumatology Department

Obesity is a complex disease that is difficult to address and often results in suboptimal outcomes that create suffering and frustration. The Patient Experience team has brought us closer to families to understand and know their needs in order to design appropriate and valuable care that improves their experience, adherence and health outcomes.

Marta Ramón Krauel head of Endocrinology Department

In the Mental Health Area, when implementing new projects and reviewing our care processes, the incorporation of the patient's and family's perspective with a rigorous methodology and proven evidence has been a lever for change in order to offer top-quality care.

Ester Camprodon Rosanas Mental Health Associate

Understanding the changing needs of our sickle cell patients has helped us to provide more personalised and tailored care. We are very grateful to have been able to work with Patient Experience, a committed team focused on patients and their families, which facilitates fluid and effective communication with the medical team.

Georgina Pedrals i Portabella nurse - case manager of Haematology Department

Alliances and partnerships

A major aspect of the team’s work involves networking and partnerships. This entails promoting and implementing actions and initiatives common to different services and departments in an organisation, as well as to various external bodies and stakeholders for co-creating value propositions.

These partnerships enable us to exchange points of view, resources and know-how with other domestic and international stakeholders related to the field of healthcare and other sectors (research, innovation, education, technology, etc.). This is why we belong to a work group that is looking into the patient experience of the international network, the European Children’s Hospitals Organisation (ECHO),and we work on projects with businesses and organisations.

Team

Joan Vinyets Rejón, cap d'Experiència del Pacient
Joan Vinyets Rejon
Head of Patient Experience
Cristina Elias Catot, tècnica superior d'Experiència del Pacient
Cristina Elias Catot
Patient Experience Technician
Elisabet Puiggròs Ruiz, técnica superior de Experiencia del Paciente
Elisabet Puiggròs Ruiz
Patient Experience Technician
Laura Martínez Mifsut, tècnica superior d'Experiència del Pacient
Laura Martínez Mifsut
Patient Experience Technician
Irene Peral TRiviño, tècnica superior d'Experiència del Pacient
Irene Peral Triviño
Patient Experience Technician
Jordi Farreras Casado, tècnic superior d'Experiència del Pacient
Jordi Farreras Casado
Patient Experience Technician