Context
The Ministry of Health allocates EUR 796.1 million from European funds for the renewal of existing equipment and for the expansion of the envelope with new equipment, seeking to reduce interregional differences by progressively reaching the European Union average. The result is the installation and commissioning of 863 high-tech sanitary equipment items.
The equipment to be renovated included linear accelerators, magnetic resonance imaging, PET and PET-CAT equipment, gamma cameras, digital brachytherapy equipment, vascular angiography and angiography equipment, neuroradiological equipment, and haemodynamic rooms.
INVEAT is the project with the largest budget allocation of the Ministry of Health, which falls under Component 18 of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Government of Spain, in the Investment Plan for High-Tech Equipment in the National Health System.
This project was born to solve the serious level of obsolescence in which high-tech medical equipment was found in Spanish hospitals and thus contribute to their modernisation and innovation. This level of obsolescence was higher than the European average, while the number of teams per inhabitant was lower, also presenting great imbalances in their geographical distribution.
Objectives
The main objective of this plan is to increase the overall survival and quality of life of people through the diagnosis of diseases in early stages, enabling rapid therapeutic intervention, with special attention to the pathologies of greater health impact – present and future – of the SNS (Sistema Nacional de Salud – National Health System) such as chronic, oncological, rare, and neurological diseases.
All this consolidates equity in access to high technology and improving the quality of care and the safety of patients and professionals.
The specific objectives are:
- Reduce the obsolescence of the technology park of high-tech equipment of the National Health System, guaranteeing the renewal of 100% of the equipment that is 12 years or older, and the linear accelerators and TC (Tomografía Axial Computarizada – Computed Tomography) of 10–11 years.
- Raise by at least 15% the average rate of density of high-tech equipment per 100 000 inhabitants, to improve equity in access throughout the national territory, bring the service closer to patients and place the National Health System, progressively, into the European average.
The equipment is installed in centres of ownership and public management, being of public use.
Implementation
The structure for the design, approval and monitoring of the INVEAT Plan is part of the co-governance bodies of the National Health System formed by representatives of the Ministry of Health, the Autonomous Communities, the Spanish Network of Agencies for the Evaluation of Health Technologies and Benefits of the National Health System, the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility as well as the National Institute of Health Management and different Scientific Societies and Spanish Associations related to health and research.
In addition, two scientific-technical groups were established as follows.
- A group of experts, with representatives of the Scientific Societies, for the definition of the technological bands, according to type of hospital, and the technical characteristics that the different types of equipment must meet for renovation or extension. This would depend on objective parameters such as the number of beds in health centres or the complexity of the portfolio of services provided.
- A group of experts, with the Spanish Society of Medical Radiology, for the anonymised review of the magnetic resonance imaging equipment of twelve or more years installed in the centres. The aim is to determine the need for its upgrade or, if necessary, its renewal.