14 December 2020. AENOR today presented the verification of the Humanisation Index of Paediatric Hospitals (IHHI) prepared by the ATRESMEDIA Foundation to the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital, one of the six hospitals in Spain that have managed to prove their results in the patient's paediatric care, with a global result of 77%.
This tool, designed by the ATRESMEDIA Foundation with the consensus of the healthcare community, allows quantitative and qualitative measurement of the humanisation level of paediatric care areas. In this way, IHHI offers the healthcare centre and personnel in all areas a diagnosis and a useful guide on improving direct patient care.
At the certification award ceremony, the Managing Director of Valdecilla, Rafael Tejido, highlighted that "talking about Humanisation is more urgent than ever; COVID-19 has made us humble and made us realise we can never take things for granted. We need to fight more for this," he said, stating that healthcare quality is especially proven in times of crisis: "this recognition is not the goal, but the way."
In this regard, the head of the Paediatrics Service in Valdecilla, María Jesús Cabero, explained that participating in IHHI "makes everyone reflect on our healthcare practice, training and research, as well as on issues such as communication, the treatment of pain and parental involvement throughout the process" and, especially coinciding with a pandemic,"to react quickly to find solutions that allow us to continue providing humanised treatment, despite the restrictions imposed for safety reasons."
Meanwhile, the director of AENOR in Cantabria, Gerardo Pelíón, highlighted the importance of implementing care models focused on the patient and their family, and added that IHHI verification generates "knowledge of the key aspects that make up the experience of paediatric patients, as well as that of all the team that has an impact on paediatric care." With regard to Valdecilla, he particularly praised the fact that "despite the current pandemic, the hospital has been able to adapt to continue providing assistance with humanisation criteria to children."
At the end of November, IHHI's results were presented for a total of 120 public, private and mixed-management hospitals, classified into three categories according to the number of paediatric beds each centre provides: Large, medium and small hospital.
The report shows that the Humanisation Index for Children's Hospitals in Spain has an average value of 60.64% for large hospitals, 55.76% for medium-sized hospitals and 48.28% for small hospitals.
There are opportunities for improvement in aspects such as Humanisation training for healthcare professionals, psychological care for children and adolescents admitted, anti-stress programmes for small patients, their family members and professionals, the Adolescent Specific Units, Pain Units, and Palliative Care Units.
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