CATALONIA

Nurse in charge: Enric Mateo Viladomat

Entity/Agency in charge: Col·legi Oficial d’Infermeres i Infermers de Barcelona /Associació d’Infermeria Familiar i Comunitària de Catalunya/ Consell de Col·legis d’Infermeres i Infermers de Catalunya.

Description

The particularities of the Catalan Health Care System cause the coexistence of different enterprises and entities who provide primary health care services to the population in Catalonia.

Due to this diversity, different initiatives originated so that nurses would adopt a more active role in the tackling of health problems that require assistance on the same day. The objective was to increase the resolution of the visits that users do spontaneously in health centers, which were commonly conducted by general practitioners.

This initiative, which was intended to respond to some particular organizational models and was sometimes oriented at dealing with the lack of professionals from other disciplines, was received by nurses with skepticism and confusion, and it even generated some discomfort among this collective. There was a regulation from the profession itself to include it in the own field of expertise and the current regulations.

Being aware of this problem, the Col·legi Oficial d’Infermeres i Infermers de Barcelona (COIB) and the Associació d’Infermeria Familiar i Comunitària de Catalunya (AIFICC) launched a work group to initiate a process of professional self-regulation. This led to two rules in the shape of Agreements of the Consell de Col·legis Oficials d’Infermeres i Infermers de Catalunya (2013 and 2016).

To this day, most of the nurses in the teams of primary health care services in Catalonia tackle these types of health problems, integrating them in the promotion and prevention that is essential in primary health care services. They do so within their field of expertise with high levels of resolution and satisfaction on the part of the users. There are several studies and publications that back this bet by the Catalan nurses.

The future challenges are oriented at modifying and adapting the current regulations, such as the nurse prescription, in order to increase the grade of resolution and provide the nurses with legal protection. Another objective that is being developed is their training in knowledge and abilities that will allow nurses to develop their competence role with full safety assurance towards the people treated.

The documentation below is only available in catalan