The Catalan Health Service (Servei Català de la Salut – CatSalut) is a public organisation under the Ministry of Health of the Generalitat of Catalonia, responsible for ensuring public, comprehensive and quality health care for the 7.9 million inhabitants of Catalonia.
The Catalan public health system was established in 1990 under the principle of universality, so that all individuals and communities have access to the health services provided. To fulfil its main objective of guaranteeing quality public health care to all citizens of Catalonia, CatSalut contracts with more than 160 health care providers to manage health services in 610 care facilities. The health services provided are based on the health needs of the population, the priority strategies defined by the Catalan Ministry of Health and the evaluation of the activity and the satisfaction of the citizens with the services provided.
CatSalut is the bridge between government policy and operational models at hospital and primary care level. As a public institution, it is well connected with all government agencies, healthcare providers and scientific and professional societies in Catalonia and Spain.
Since 2021, CatSalut and the Strategic Framework for Cardiovascular Diseases have worked to improve the resilience of the cardiovascular (CV) care system in Catalonia by strengthening the links and coordination between policy makers and centres responsible for CV care. As part of this project, CatSalut has reviewed healthcare systems from an integrative care perspective and identified best-practices in patient care management and coordination.
Building on this experience, CatSalut is leading RESIL-Card’s WP2, which aims to pilot test the innovative resilience assessment tool developed in WP1, and to gather in-depth insights from the actual end-users and beneficiaries of the tool.
Concretely, CatSalut will:
1. Test the resilience assessment tool for CV care pathways in collaboration with selected users and beneficiaries representing the diversity of profiles and situations across the EU.
2. Address the needs and difficulties identified during the first phase of the pilot test to improve the resilience assessment tool and any related outputs, such as the dissemination platform or training materials.
In addition to its leading role in WP2, CatSalut has actively contributed to WP1 to help identify resilience practices among professionals, to develop the resilience assessment tool and will strongly support WP3 for the dissemination of the final version of the tool.
Ariadna Sanz Escartin
BSc MSc, Health Policy and Programme Manager
Ms. Ariadna Sanz holds a B.Sc. degree in Biology and a M.Sc. degree in International Public Health. From 2009 to 2019, she worked as an International Project Manager at the Barcelona Institute of Global Health (ISGlobal), mainly focusing on malaria studies and the development of minimally invasive autopsy procedures to determine the cause of death in countries with low access to pathology services. She currently works as a Health Policy and Programme Manager at the Catalan Health Service. Her work focuses on evaluating the performance of existing care pathways and defining operational plans for those that need to be improved or implemented. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Strategic Framework for Cardiovascular Diseases, the Executive Board of the Information System for Infection Surveillance in Catalonia and the Monitoring Committee of the Operational Plan for Central Sensitisation Syndrome.
Dr. Fina Mauri Ferré
MD PhD, EFESC, Interventional Cardiologist, President of the Advisory Council on CVD of Catalonia
Dr. Fina Mauri Ferré holds a MD and a PhD in Cardiology from the Universitat de Barcelona and is currently President of the Catalonia Council on Cardiovascular Diseases; where her work focuses on cardiovascular health policy, STEMI networks, interventional cardiology, and integrated care models. She previously worked at the Hospital de Bellvitge, University of Barcelona, in the Coronary Care Unit and later in the Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratory, before becoming Director of the Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratory at Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol between 2000 and 2023. From 2015 to 2023, she was also the Director of the Pla Director de Malalties de l’Aparell Circulatori (PDMCV) in the Department of Health of the Government of Catalonia.
A member of several European and Spanish cardiology committees, she has also served as President of the Spanish Working Groups on IVUS and Interventional Cardiology respectively and has held leadership roles within the European Society of Cardiology (EAPCI), particularly in training, education, and patient advocacy initiatives.
