The Vall d’Hebron Campus is a pioneering centre in research carried out by nurses. Yesterday, to continue promoting the role of this group of professionals in scientific progress, Vall d’Hebron hosted a conference aimed at nurses that sought to encourage their participation in research projects. In the words of María Àngels Barba, Director of Nursing at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, “this meeting shows that we are on the right track, and we hope that greater numbers of nurses will participate in research projects aimed at better meeting the needs of patients”. For his part, Dr Albert Salazar, manager of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, said that “nurses have played a key role in the recent reorganisation of the hospital in a new model of areas of knowledge and intensity of care, and we are now also committed to facilitating their participation in research".

The meeting kicked off with some good news: the launch of an intensification grant coordinated between the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) and Vall d’Hebron Hospital. Professionals from the different disciplines of the Vall d’Hebron Nursing Department can apply for this grant, as set out in the Strategic Plan for Research and Innovation in Health. “This grant will partially free up a nurse so that she can spend time promoting and participating in care research projects,” said Dr Joan Comella, director of the VHIR. Vall d’Hebron is now the first hospital of the Catalan Health Institute (ICS) to launch a call for intensification.

Afterwards, Montserrat Martínez, assistant in the Management, Knowledge and Evaluation Area of the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, moderated the round-table discussion entitled “Promoting multidisciplinary nursing research” which set out to present the organisational model for the management of multidisciplinary nursing research, the model of empowerment in research competences and strategies for making its research activity more visible.

At the VHIR, nursing research is channelled through the Multidisciplinary Nursing research group, which interacts closely with the Campus healthcare services. Its director, Dr Esperanza Zuriguel, explained the relationship that exists between the research organisation and the hospital within the Vall d’Hebron Campus “in order to promote cross-cutting collaboration, avoid fragmentation of research, and make better use of economic resources and knowledge to create new lines of research”. She also stated that more and more scientific articles are being published and more projects are being secured, and that the short-term objective is to secure competitive projects with funding.

Nursing research is important in order to generate new knowledge that translates into health interventions that can properly respond to patients’ needs. “Nurses are in the best position to know what patients require. To learn this, it is crucial to include the citizen’s perspective throughout the entire process: from the initial idea to the implementation and evaluation of the new strategies that are developed,” stated Miguel Ángel Robles, Cemcat nurse and predoctoral researcher of the Multidisciplinary Nursing research group at VHIR, who also encouraged the nurses in attendance to follow the research pathway from leadership positions.

Finally, in order to inform the public about the nursing research activity, the event was attended by Fran Garcia, director of Communication, Corporate Strategy and Citizen Services of the Vall d’Hebron University Campus. He said “Explaining the advances in research, stories of patients who have benefited, prizes or awards through internal and external channels help to raise awareness of our research activity and encourages nurses to take part in these kinds of projects”.