Montserrat Aran, a nurse at Vall d’Hebron and principal investigator of the Multidisciplinary Nursing Research Group at the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), has been selected as one of the five finalist candidates in the hospital category of the 5th edition of the Research Awards of the General Council of Nursing, a competition that received 171 project submissions this year.

The recognition highlights the Cuidador Acompnyant project, a nursing-led initiative that promotes the active and safe participation of families in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The initiative evaluates a multimodal intervention aimed at integrating families into the environment of critically ill patients in a structured, safe, and beneficial way for everyone involved.

A collective recognition of nursing research

The finalist emphasizes that this achievement represents “a recognition that is especially exciting because it highlights the value of nursing research in the field of intensive care.” She also stresses that the result is the outcome of multidisciplinary teamwork within the unit, the support of nursing leadership in critical care, and the scientific backing of the VHIR Multidisciplinary Nursing Research Group, as well as the trust of patients and their families.

In the same hospital category, the first prize was awarded to Alejandro Bosch Alcaraz for the project “Effectiveness of a multicomponent intervention in the use of mechanical restraints in pediatric units: the multicenter ConMecUCIP Zero study,” in which Dr. Esperanza Zuriguel, head of the Multidisciplinary Nursing Research Group at the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) and nurse in the Transversal Services of the General Hospital, and Rocío Tabernero, member of the VHIR Multidisciplinary Nursing Research Group and assistant nursing director for critical care, burns and neonates at the Traumatology, Rehabilitation and Burns Hospital, participate as collaborating researchers.

Nursing leadership and impact on quality of care

One of the key aspects of the project is that it originated from real clinical practice, led by nurses and with a highly applied and transferable approach. The proposal combines humanization, patient safety, and a rigorous evaluation of impact—three aspects that are increasingly prioritized within healthcare systems.

Currently, as principal investigator, she leads the project by coordinating the multidisciplinary team, the methodological design, and the monitoring of the program’s implementation and evaluation, under the supervision and guidance of her PhD supervisor, Dr. Elisabet Gallart i Vivé, RN, MSN, PhD, clinical nurse in the Intensive Care Unit and coordinator of the Adult ECMO Program at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital. At the same time, she continues working as a clinical nurse, which helps keep the research closely connected to real clinical practice.

Her line of work aims to simultaneously improve the experience of patients and families, the well-being of healthcare professionals, and clinical safety. The goal is to generate evidence that will enable the implementation of more humanized ICU care models without compromising quality or patient safety.

This recognition, Montserrat concludes, “also highlights the capacity of nursing to lead innovation projects and generate knowledge that can be directly applied to clinical practice, as well as the key role it plays in transforming care models for critically ill patients.”

This study has been fully or partially funded by the Official College of Nurses of Barcelona (www.coib.cat
) within the framework of the Nursing Research Grants (PR-724/2024)