The Aspace Catalunya Foundation received a visit from the team from the Rehabilitation and Physical Medicine Service of the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital, who were able to learn first-hand about the operation of the Petit Aspace Day Hospital for babies and children aged 0 to 3.
Petit Aspace is a specialized facility for the care of children aged 0 to 3 years with neurodevelopmental disorders, cerebral palsy and multiple disabilities of high complexity, or at high risk of developing them. The service responds to complex clinical situations that require an intensive and highly specialized interdisciplinary approach, complementary to hospital care.
The first years of life constitute a critical window of opportunity linked to brain neuroplasticity. In this context, early and intensive intervention has a decisive impact on children's neurological development, functionality and future quality of life.
The visit is part of the consolidated collaboration between both institutions, based on clinical cooperation and complementarity between the hospital environment and specialized community care. This joint work allows for optimizing early detection, therapeutic approaches and support for families from the early stages of development.
In this sense, coordination between teams is a key element, especially in highly complex cases, as it facilitates continuity of care, coherence in clinical decision-making and a better response to the global needs of children and their families.
This shared work model responds to the need to effectively articulate the different levels of care —hospital and community—, avoiding fragmentation of the system and guaranteeing comprehensive, coherent and sustained care pathways over time. Early coordination between teams allows for anticipating needs, adjusting therapeutic plans and optimizing clinical outcomes at a particularly critical stage of development.
Likewise, the collaboration between both institutions opens up key opportunities for improvement, such as strengthening early referral circuits, consolidating structured clinical coordination spaces, promoting shared decision-making in highly complex cases and developing increasingly integrated and person-centered care models.
In addition, Petit Aspace's intervention model incorporates a community vision that promotes the connection of families with the support network in their environment, contributing to closer, sustainable and integrated care within the health and social system.
This specialized community support is especially relevant in this type of situation, as it allows clinical intervention to be transferred to the child's natural environment, reinforces the role of the family as an active agent in the therapeutic process and guarantees continuity of care beyond the hospital setting.
This meeting has allowed us to strengthen shared knowledge spaces and continue to advance in a joint care model aimed at improving the health outcomes and quality of life of children with greater complexity.
