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Valencia

Spain

About the region

The Valencian Community (VC) is located on the east side of the Iberian peninsula, extended along the Mediterranean coast.  It is the fourth most populous autonomous community in Spain, after Andalusia, Catalonia and Madrid, with around 5 million inhabitants. The capital, Valencia, is the third largest city in Spain.

The very fertile coastal line is the basis of large scale agriculture production, where oranges and other fruits add to legumes and all sort of vegetables. Since the 60’s in the last century, this shares value with the secondary and the tertiary sector. VC is well connected with big airports at Valencia and Alicante, as well as motorways and high-speed train. Also popular is gastronomy, with the worldwide known paella.

 

Health and social care in the region

The Valencia Health Service works under a scheme of universal coverage (97% of the population) and operates an extensive network of acute and long-term care hospitals, specialised outpatient and primary healthcare centres and public health centres. Healthcare in this network is free of charge (except for co-payment for outpatient prescriptions) and supported by Regional Government budgets.

To accomplish that objective, the health and care workforce accounts with 532 special units, 1,619 primary care, a total of 15,438 hospital beds, and 1,365 day centres, mental health centres, etc.

The main actual challenges include the need for mutual integration of health and social services, and a more advanced implementation of health promoting actions at primary care level.

Within the scope of VIGOUR, our vision was an extension of healthy lifestyle (physical activity) to wide layers of population through a cost-effective and integrated involvement of relevant stakeholders within the structure of the regional public health service.

VIGOUR in the region

There is a couple of health departments with embryonary initiatives (ACTIVA program in Hospital General and CARMEN in Hospital Clínico) providing healthy lifestyle (physical activity) through integration of primary and specialized care, and initial participation of social services and fit centres. VIGOUR helped to promote the extension of those programs to other health departments and to integrate the initiative into the digital services of the regional health service. Achieving the purposive implication of the regional health service was the priority.

The initiatives included the integration of the health professionals and the own end-users, which have translated into the creation of local health councils, in which there is the participation and support of local citizen associations.

Regional contact details

Antonio Cano: antonio.cano(at)uveg(dot)es

María Luz Sánchez: m.luz.sanchez(at)uveg(dot)es

vigour(at)empirica(dot)com

The team in the region

               
Antonio Cano Carolina Mir Remei Raga Amparo Rodríguez Amparo Carbonell Julio Escrig María Luz Sánchez Alicia García