Interview with Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau

The upcoming Health Revolution Congress on May 17th is the largest European Summit in Digital Health, where global startups & stakeholders join forces in Barcelona. The event, powered by Barcelona Health Hub, provides you inside knowledge of cutting-edge technologies, new tendencies and future solutions. Let’s explore today’s digital health solutions for tomorrow’s health!

One of the companies you can meet at the Health Revolution Congress is BHH member Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau. This high-complexity hospital, with more than 600 years of history, launched in 2022 the Clinical Validation Center of Digital Health Solutions. This joint venture with Barcelona Health Hub aims to first, generate scientific evidence on the impact and clinical effectiveness of digital solutions and new healthcare processes, and second, facilitate technology transference to the market. This initiative complements the digital strategy of the hospital, adding up to the current activity of 35.500 inpatients treated each year, 160.000 emergencies and more than 460.000 outpatient appointments.

Today we meet with Mar Gomis Pastor, Director of Operations of the Clinical Validation Center for Digital Health of Hospital Sant Pau, who will share with us more about their expectations for the Health Revolution Congress.

Mar Gomis, we’re looking forward to seeing you at the Health Revolution Congress. Can you please introduce yourself and tell us about the Hospital Sant Pau?

Hi, I’m delighted to be here today at the Health Revolution Congress. I’m the Director of the Clinical Validation Center of Digital Health, a joint initiative between the hospital and Barcelona Health Hub, whose aim is to generate clinical evidence and facilitate technology transference between the healthcare and the digital market.

Hospital Sant Pau is one of the leading organizations in the Catalan public healthcare network, and a reference in cardiovascular diseases, onco-hematology and neurology, among others. The digital transformation of our Hospital is a priority for the Hospital’s management. One of the initiatives that have been promoted in this regard is the commitment to the Clinical Validation Center of Digital Health, which aims to promote high-quality, patient-safe and clinically effective digital health solutions in the current.

Can you elaborate about what’s exactly the Clinical Validation Centre of Digital Health Solutions?

The hospital launched in 2022 the Clinical Validation Center of Digital Health, a joint venture with BHH, aiming to generate clinical evidence of digital health solutions, and to promote adoption and technology transference from the industry to healthcare.

The healthcare sector has experienced a remarkable transformation in the last years, including digital tools as part of daily practice. Hospital Sant Pau is contributing to this transformation, designing, developing and validating new healthcare processes for non-face-to-face attention, data standardization, decision support systems, telemonitoring tools, 3D printing or virtual modelling, among others.

And the big news is that, as a driver for the Center’s achievements, Hospital Sant Pau has created one of the first “Clinical and Technological Research Ethics Subcommittee” in Spain, a sub-group of the hospital’s Ethical Committee, with the required expertise to assess research activities that involve cutting-edge technologies.

How do you see the future for digital health solutions in hospitals?

More and more digital technologies are becoming part of clinical practice. Some of them allow a better communication with patients, self-empowerment or remote monitoring. Other advanced technologies, such as AI or data-driven services, go beyond the virtualization of healthcare processes, since they are radically changing the way with conceive healthcare.

For both basic and advanced technologies, there is an urgent need, first, to standardize the way the way we co-create, conduct proof-of-concepts or clinically validate new digital health solutions, and second, to ensure adoption and technology transference from the industry to the healthcare providers. The standardization of clinical validation to generate evidence, and the promotion of technology transference are key activities in which hospitals, companies and other stakeholders need to collaborate. And this is precisely the aim of the Clinical Validation Centre of Digital Health.

Furthermore, the Center believes that it is by creating an international network for clinical validation that we can drive a change in healthcare, promoting the standardization of clinical validation and attracting international leading companies to collaborate with us in this quest for adoption. So, we are promoting the creation of this network by sharing our resources and expertise with any partner interested to join us.

Barcelona Health Hub is thrilled to have you at this largest European congress in digital health. Could you share why you decided to join the Health Revolution Congress?

We believe that the activities and services provided by the Clinical Validation Center for Digital Health are key to, first, generate evidence on the impact of digital health, and second, to facilitate adoption. Health Revolution Congress gives us an excellent opportunity to contribute to this revolution and to improve healthcare services by means of thecnology. This event gives us the opportunity to meet with technology companies, investors and entities in the healthcare sector to move forward.

What are you excited about for the Health Revolution Congress?

We believe that this edition will be the first of many to come, setting Barcelona in the center of Europe (and worldwide) in the field of digital transformation, attracting companies, investors and other players worldwide.

Is there anything else you want to share with us?

I would like to take this opportunity to invite technology companies to approach hospitals to co-create and validate together the technology of the future. I would also like to encourage the rest of the actors in the healthcare system to create a powerful network that allows us to collaborate and to be engaged in joint activities for digital transformation, expanding the limits of how technology can bring new opportunities for health.


Don’t miss Hospital Sant Pau at the Health Revolution Congress on May 17th! Be sure to reserve your seat on time and meet with global startups & stakeholders in Barcelona.

Get your ticket HERE!