The Santa Caterina hospital in Salt has managed to reduce emergency visits with the implementation of the route for complex chronic patients, a care circuit that in its first year has allowed to attend to 155 people and refer them to the Medical Day hospital.
The measure seeks to give a more tailored response to patients with particularly complex conditions, partly avoiding their passage through the emergency service and orienting care towards a more adequate resource for their clinical follow-up.
A profile of patients with growing weight in emergencies
During 2025, 13.91% of emergency episodes at the center corresponded to complex chronic patients or those with advanced chronic disease. The data reflects the care burden of this profile in the daily activity of the Salt hospital and the impact it has on the organization of services.
The initiative is aimed at people with complex chronicity, advanced disease or situations of fragility, in line with the strategy promoted by the Department of Health to improve the care of these cases and better adjust healthcare circuits.
More than 33,000 people with complex pathologies in the Girona region
In the Girona Health Region there are 33,639 people with complex or very complex chronic pathology. Within this group, 35% of complex chronic pathology cases correspond to patients over 80 years old, a factor that conditions both care demand and the need for specific devices.
The estimated prevalence of complex chronic diseases in Catalonia stands between 3.5% and 4% of the population. In this context, the circuit deployed in Santa Caterina is proposed as a tool to organize care and reduce pressure on emergency services, especially in patients who require continuous medical control and a response more adapted to their clinical situation.
The balance of the first year points to a reorganization of care access for these patients at Salt hospital, with the aim of offering more adequate care to a group that has a growing weight in Girona's healthcare system.