Collaboration agreement between the ASISA Foundation and the Avedis Donabedian Foundation to improve the quality of care.

The ASISA and Avedis Donabedian Foundations have recently signed a collaboration agreement to develop various actions to improve the quality of health and social services received by citizens.

This agreement is based on the common objectives of both organizations in research, teaching and technology in order to make the most of their potential and aims to carry out activities in areas of common interest and to promote the reciprocal exchange of information, allowing debate and the exchange of experiences on issues related to the quality of health services.

One of the most important projects resulting from the partnership between the two entities is the E-Pract program for the control and management of pain based on improving its systematic evaluation in hospital care units to reduce the frequency of patients admitted with untreated acute pain. This program will soon be implemented in the hospitals of the HLA Hospital Group in Madrid (Moncloa), Alicante (Vistahermosa), Murcia (La Vega), Malaga (El Angel), Almeria (Mediterraneo), Granada (Inmaculada), Jerez (Puerta del Sur) and Seville (Santa Isabel).

Dr. Maria Tormo, ASISA's Director of Planning and Development and promoter of the agreement, says about the Avedis Donabedian Foundation:

“Being able to count on the Avedis Donabedian Foundation with its renowned prestige in the field of quality care is, without any doubt, a guarantee of success. With this agreement we will offer our professionals the best possible training, which also covers all the professional categories working in our hospitals. It is undoubtedly a qualitative leap forward with the best possible partner.

The project includes pain assessment scales for different types of patients, pain treatment protocols, pain management training materials for all the center's professionals and other materials that will facilitate the implementation of this good practice.

The support strategies of the project can be divided into 5 main groups: dissemination strategies; training tools (for all the staff of the centers and for those responsible for the project); implementation tools; evaluation tools (very important since it allows us to know the baseline situation, monitor improvements and compare with other participating centers); and, finally, ongoing support and exchange with other centers.

The E-Pract is based on the collaborative project methodology, whereby each center benefits both from the support of the project coordinators at the Donabedian Institute and from the exchange of information, strategies, documents and indicator results with the other participating centers.

The 18-month project has a Monitoring Committee made up of Dr. Rosa Suñol and Dr. Carola Orrego on behalf of the Avedis Donabedian Foundation, and Dr. Antonia Solvas and Dr. Maria Tormo on behalf of the ASISA Foundation.

In addition, the agreement between the two organizations provides for the award of a grant for the recruitment of a junior researcher wishing to carry out his or her doctoral thesis in the field of improving the quality of care of an innovative nature.

Dr. Rosa Suñol, director of the Avedis Donabedian Foundation, states that:

“It is very important to support the development of new knowledge on quality improvement, both for the topic to be developed and for the possibility of consolidating the training of young researchers who will be the future of the healthcare system. In this case, the subject of the doctoral thesis (integrated care) is highly topical and represents a challenge for all health systems in the world”.

The final amount of the award-grant is 15,000 euros, recently awarded to Marta Ballester Santiago, a graduate in Political Science and Administration from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Ballester has been the one who best met the requirements requested for the contract and with the best skills, aptitudes and academic training. This contract will have a duration of 3 years and is instrumented through an employment contract between the FAD and the research personnel in training. It also includes an additional endowment to finance the tuition fees for doctoral studies.

Both institutions consider it convenient, through this agreement, to formalize this type of cooperation and to establish the framework of action to which the successive actions to be carried out will be adapted.

About the ASISA Foundation

The ASISA Foundation is a non-profit organization created by the ASISA Group in response to its social commitment, the promotion of health and its vocation to contribute to the development of knowledge through its programs and agreements with universities and the scientific and research community.

The challenges of the ASISA Foundation are to contribute to the support of social programs in our environment; to promote health, focusing on the care and promotion of a healthy and quality life; to research new formulas within the health field that will improve people's quality of life and to promote knowledge through collaboration agreements with the academic and research world, among many other actions.

More information at www.fundacionasisa.org

About the Avedis Donabedian Foundation

The Avedis Donabedian Foundation (FAD) was founded in 1989 and is the managing body of the Avedis Donabedian University Institute, attached to the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona-UAB. Its mission is to collaborate with professionals, centers, public administrations, citizen and professional organizations and other public and private institutions with the aim of improving the quality of health and social services received by citizens.

Quality improvement promotes a professional and scientific attitude and action that uses elements of evaluation theory, management disciplines and other quantitative and qualitative methodologies to ensure that the work of professionals is of increasingly higher scientific and technical quality and that users receive services that meet their needs and expectations.