The rollout of the critical care model for the Girona Region includes a semi-critical care unit at Figueres Hospital

The Semi-Critical Care Unit at Figueres Hospital caters to both seriously ill patients who do not require admission to an intensive care unit and those continuing their hospital stay after being discharged from the ICU at Trueta-Santa Caterina or the Cardiovascular Critical Care Unit at Trueta. Consequently, this allows such patients to be hospitalized at a facility closer to home—offering associated benefits—while ensuring complete clinical safety.

The semi-critical care unit at this Alt Empordà facility is located within the Emergency Department, occupying the space previously used by the Monitoring Unit (UMO). The project involved upgrading this unit through facility adaptations, the installation of advanced technology, and direct coordination with the Girona Territorial Critical Care Unit.

The new Figueres unit operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, staffed by an enhanced team of healthcare professionals who have undergone intensive training and preparation for the care of this type of patient. Additionally, these professionals will receive support from specialists at Trueta and Santa Caterina hospitals via a new technology platform, as part of the Critic.CAT project.

Critic.CAT facilitates the real-time transfer of information and knowledge among the centers and professionals involved in the care of critical and semi-critical patients (referral hospitals, local hospitals, and the SEM emergency medical service). It also contributes to improving decision-making, resource-use efficiency, and territorial equity in the care of critically and semi-critically ill patients—both general and cardiac—in the Girona Region.

Jaume Heredia, manager of the Girona Health Region, expressed his satisfaction, noting that “the implementation of this model allows patients admitted to local hospitals to receive care at a level similar to that provided to patients in the ICU at Trueta-Santa Caterina. Since September 14, when the Figueres Semi-critical Care Unit was launched, five cases have been identified involving patients who would have had to be transferred to Girona had this unit not existed.”

For his part, Xavier Verdaguer, Managing Director of the Salut Empordà Foundation, expressed his gratitude for “the tremendous work done by the professionals to bring this project—part of the Critic.CAT initiative—to fruition.” He also highlighted that “this model avoids duplication, ensures more efficient resource use, and improves proximity and accessibility for patients. It is a networked service that represents a qualitative leap forward for the population of Figueres and the Alt Empordà region.“

Finally, Olga Mesquida, Director of the Emergency Department at Figueres Hospital, highlighted “the work of territorial coordination to ensure cross-disciplinary and continuous training for the entire clinical team, enabling us to offer the best possible response to patients admitted to Figueres Hospital. In our case, the Semi-critical Care Unit evolved from what was previously the Monitoring Unit, and this change has also allowed us to increase our staffing levels.”

Important coordination task

This new care model aims to improve the delivery of intensive care services across the entire region through the coordination and collaboration of professionals from various hospitals, supported by digital tools. Implementing this new model has required essential coordination among the professionals involved across the different centers—spanning both medical and nursing staff—as well as with the SEM (Medical Emergency System) and information systems technicians, particularly regarding the technological aspects.

Significant increase in beds, closer to patients’ homes

In the coming weeks, the Girona Health Region project will continue to advance with the opening of a unit at Olot Hospital; implementation at Sant Jaume Hospital in Calella is also scheduled for 2027. Once the rollout of the care model for critically and semi-critically ill patients is complete, the Girona Health Region will have increased its capacity from 12 general semi-critical care beds to 44 across the territory (eight each at the Santa Caterina, Palamós, and Figueres hospitals; four at Olot; 12 within the Maresme i la Selva Health Corporation—comprising the Blanes and Sant Jaume de Calella hospitals—plus four at Trueta Hospital). Intensive care capacity for critically ill patients will rise from 27 to 39 beds, as the ICU at Trueta Hospital is set to expand by 12 beds. In addition to these, there are critical and semi-critical care beds dedicated to other specialties, such as neurology, cardiology, neurosurgery, anesthesiology, and pulmonology.

This project will improve coordination among hospitals in Girona to optimize the management of adult patients requiring critical and semi-critical care, and will align healthcare resources to better meet these patients’ needs while taking the population’s requirements into account. Furthermore, this rollout will be carried out in line with the current situation and will serve as a foundation for the future Health Campus scenario, which will feature a centralized critical care service supporting a network of semi-critical care services across the rest of the territory.

The new model will make it possible to increase the number of structural beds, reduce the transfer of critically ill patients outside the Girona Health Region (currently involving around 60 people per year), improve territorial equity, and treat patients closer to home using the resource best suited to their care needs, in addition to improving patient flows between hospitals.

Critic.CAT is driven by the Department of Health and CatSalut, and coordinated by the TIC Salut i Social Foundation.

Source: Departament de Salut