The Innovation Week ends today with the 5th edition of the Jo Innovo innovation contest at CosmoCaixa in Barcelona, an idea competition open to all professionals in Vall d’Hebron sponsored by Siemens Healthineers and Alexion AstraZeneca Rare Disease encourages workers to present new projects in four categories: ‘Patient and family-centered care’; ‘Talent, development and professional well-being’; ‘Organization, quality and safety’; and ‘Sustainability, efficiency and social responsibility’. The winner of the fifth edition of Jo Innovo is the project ‘High Level Support for Critical Situations: Revolutionizing the Response to Cardiac Arrest with an Innovative Application’, by Marc Mendo, resident of the Anesthesiology, Resuscitation, and Pain Treatment Service at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital. He received the Siemens Healthineers Jo Innovo 2023 Award from Dr. Albert Salazar, manager of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, and Alberto Martínez Gómez, general director of Siemens Healthineers Spain. This award means a commitment on the part of Vall d’Hebron to develop and implement his idea, in addition to a suitcase and a check in the form of a plane ticket for a trip and an experience at the Karolinska Institute, one of the hospitals that are part of the European University Hospital Alliance (EUHA), like Vall d’Hebron, and one of the most famous university institutions specializing in medicine in the world.
The winning project of this fifth edition of Jo Innovo is a mobile application specially designed to streamline the work flow during cardiac arrests, usually in the hospital environment, which often create situations of stress and tension. The application, presented in the category ‘Organization, Quality, and Safety’, provides automatic reminders about the decisions made and the next actions to be taken so that the assistant can focus on implementing the necessary steps. “I am very happy and grateful. I hope that everyone in Vall d’Hebron can install the application to help professionals manage cardiac arrests. In this edition of Jo Innovo, there are excellent ideas, and I hope that in the future they can be implemented, said Marc Mendo about his project. “The Jo Innovo competition, with a history of five editions, is possible thanks to the participation of professionals in Vall d’Hebron; its key element is the promotion of innovation, understood in a global sense, for the benefit of patients”, promoting Dr. Albert Salazar, manager of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital. The Jo Innovo gala, held at CosmoCaixa and presented by journalist Maria Xinxó, is the culmination of the third Innovation Week, which includes Siemens Healthineers and Alexion AstraZeneca Rare Disease as main sponsors, with the collaboration of Lilly, AbbVie, Novartis, Broomx, and Roche. One of the innovations of this year’s ceremony is the award for the best announcer, chosen by those who attended the ceremony from among all the finalists. The winner is Zhan Qiao Lin Wu, a resident of Plastic Surgery and Burns, who received a film clapperboard and a sleeping headband from Fran Garcia, director of Communication, Corporate Strategy, and Citizen Services at Vall d’Hebron.
One winner of the twelve finalist projects
The members of the Vall d’Hebron Innovation Commission made the first selection, selecting the 12 best projects. A jury made up of experts and authorities in innovation and health is in charge of voting for the best in each category. Your vote has a weight of 60%. The vote of the professionals in Vall d’Hebron has the remaining 40%, and at the end of today’s gala vote, the two votes are weighed.
All finalist ideas are awarded a training program from the Healthcare Transformation Academy worth 300 euros. In addition, during the gala, the winners of each category received the Alexion Astrazeneca Rare Disease Award, an illuminated letter ‘I’ that refers to innovation, and headphones for sleeping. Ana Crespo, Director of Communications of Alexion AstraZeneca Rare Disease, presented the award to the winner of each category accompanied by four professionals from Vall d’Hebron: Dr. Josep Antoni Ramos-Quiroga, head of the Psychiatry service at the Hospital Universitari Vall d’ Hebron and head of the Psychiatry, Mental Health and Addictions research group at the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) in the category of ‘Patient and family-centered care’ ‘; dr. Anna Sala, head of the Vall d’Hebron Innovation Unit, in the category ‘Talent, development and professional well-being’; dr. Soledad Romea, director of Quality, Processes and Innovation at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, in the ‘Organization, quality and safety’ category; and Dr. Antonio Roman, director of health care at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, in the category ‘Sustainability, efficiency and social responsibility’. “The Jo Innovo competition, our annual festival of innovation, has brought about a change in the culture of innovation in Vall d’Hebron, which embodies the understanding that innovation does not only depend on technology but, above all, on the people,explained Anna Sala.
In this edition, the gala has unique moments. Manuel de Aguas Muñoz, a Ciborg-producing artist, spoke about transhumanism in the opening speech. There is also a neurosensory experience presented by Neuroelectrics in collaboration with Sónar + D. This is ENAKD, a pioneering project that collects brain waves and, with the help of artificial intelligence, transforms the emotions of people who turn any kind of performance into art and music so that the audience who watches or listens can experience these emotions in a more intense way.
In the Patient and Family-Centered Care category, ‘The Last 365º Journey in Pediatric Palliative Care’, by Ariadna Torres, a psycho-oncologist at the Pediatric Palliative Care and Complex Chronic Patient Unit, was the winner. This is a humanization project of virtual reality and projections of the last wishes of the child patient in the trips, which also include cognitive techniques, to accompany pediatric palliative care patients and their families in the dying process.
In the category of ‘Talent, development, and professional well-being’, the project ‘Customized camera for the detection of green fluorescence’ by Zhan Qiao Lin Wu, resident of the Plastic Surgery and Burns Service, won. This is a camera that uses indocyanine green to ensure proper perfusion of superthin flaps and precision for surgeons during supermicrosurgery. Although there are similar devices on the market, the project camera has a much lower cost.
In the category ‘Sustainability, efficiency, and social responsibility’, the winner is the project ‘Don’t throw it away, give it a second life’, by Inés Pazos, a clinical simulation technician and member of the Innovation Unit, who created a specific simulation of the container, which will be strategically placed inside the warehouses.
