On Monday, the European University Hospital Alliance (EUHA) held the assembly for its members in Barcelona. Created in 2017 by Vall d’Hebron and the Karolinska University Hospital (in Stockholm, Sweden), of which they form part, the EUHA is made up of the nine largest benchmark University hospitals on the continent with the aim of improving the results of patients through sharing experience in highly complex medicine, research and education.

Today, the EUHA held its assembly at Vall d’Hebron. Dr Albert Salazar, Director of the Vall d’Hebron and Chairman of the European University Hospital Alliance since 10 June for a period of six months, welcomed the attendees and highlighted “the significance of this alliance, which allows us to establish synergies with the most important centres in Europe and improve the care for patients and the development of our professionals”.

Within the framework of the meeting, Dr Albert Salazar handed over the chairmanship of the EUHA to Dr Wim Robberecht, general manager of UZ Leuven, the biggest hospital in Belgium, in the city of Leuven. The chairmanship of the EUHA rotates among its members and this is the second time that it has been held by Vall d’Hebron, during a time in which it has been crucial to rethink the strategic plan of the alliance, in light of the challenges and opportunities faced by hospitals post-Covid.

CAR T-cells and evaluation system in the treatment of breast cancer, key projects for 2021-2023

The meeting of the members of the EUHA held at Vall d’Hebron has served to set out the strategy of the alliance for 2021-2023. The projects for this period include the commencement of cross-border clinical trials on CAR-T cells, to develop a standard immunotherapy that comprises taking cells from the patient’s immune system so that these attack the tumours. There is also the project for evaluating breast cancer, which aims to make the most of the expertise in breast cancer among the members of the EUHA to develop a common and limited series of indicators to allow the comparison of breast cancer treatments and the results obtained in a retrospective manner using a limited cohort of patients. It is hoped that, beginning with breast cancer, this evaluation system can be applied to other care programmes.

The highlight of the meeting was the talk about cooperation and the European health policy by Xavier Prats-Monné, the previous general manager for Health and Food Safety of the European Commission, which reflected on how the pandemic had created a window of opportunity to improve public health.

Tour of Vall d’Hebron

Those attending the assembly of the members of the European University Hospital Alliance had the opportunity to have a guided tour of Vall d’Hebron. They visited the new paediatric outpatients section, the Children’s Hospital and the Women’s Hospital, the clinical laboratories and the intensive care unit at Vall d’Hebron, which played a key role in providing care to patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.