SJD at Home Program, the first pediatric hospitalization service at home in Spain

“We needed to have more beds available in the Hospital for patients who really needed them, and we were also convinced that the boys and girls are better off at home”. This is the point of departure which Juan José García head of the Pediatric Department of the SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital, identifies as the beginning of the hospital's “SJD at Home” programme, a groundbreaking initiative in pediatric hospital care in Spain.
In November 2019, the Hospital launched a pilot programme with 95 patients to evaluate the possibility of setting up home care in an initial group of children. The trial lasted three months and helped the Hospital to ascertain the type of profile of families who could participate in home hospitalisation in order to evaluate the initial findings. The programme, now consolidated, frees up between 6 and 12 beds a day in the Hospital: "it is like having a ward outside the Hospital”, says Juan José García.