Vall d’Hebron’s Smart ICU, a pioneer in Spain in connected medical devices and secondary use of data

In September 2018, Vall d’Hebron inaugurated its new Smart ICU, which, with an area of 3,500 m2 and 56 individual spaces, became the largest in Spain. The new Smart ICU was created as a complex unit designed to achieve three key objectives: improving management, making better decisions and delivering more effective patient care.
 
In the new ICU, admitted patients are monitored continuously and comprehensively in real time through haemodynamic and respiratory systems, drug infusion pumps and bed sensors, and video surveillance of patient rooms provided by various devices.
 
It also incorporates technological innovations that help improve the experience and care of both patients and their families, such as ceiling-mounted surgical lighting, a hoist to move the patient anywhere within the room, LED lighting that follows the circadian rhythm, and a noise alert system. All designed to support both patient care and rest.

Vall d’Hebron was a pioneer in Spain in adopting a model based on connected medical devices that generate continuous data. This not only improves patient monitoring and clinical and organisational decision-making in the ICU but also enables secondary use for research and management purposes. These data are also used to train artificial intelligence algorithms, which, in future, will help develop solutions to improve the detection, prediction and treatment of critical illnesses. In addition, continuously transferring data helps strengthen both the humanisation of the ICU and patient safety.

The strength of this new facility was demonstrated during the Covid-19 pandemic when Vall d’Hebron’s ICU expanded from 56 structural beds to 186 critical care beds in just two weeks.

The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) cares for 1,200 highly complex, critically ill patients each year. Additionally, the department supports other critically ill patients who are not in the ICU but require assessment by intensive care specialists. The Intensive Care Medicine Department leads several hospital-wide programmes, such as Sepsis Code, Cardiopulmonary Arrest care and the ECMO programme, and is also actively involved in the Organ Donation and Transplant Programme.