Servicio Madrileno De Salud

SERMAS
Spanish

Servicio Madrileño de Salud (SERMAS) is the administrative and management structure that integrates the 31 public hospitals and every public health service of the Madrid Regional Health System. SERMAS is engaged in SPRINTT through 2 hospitals deeply engaged in European projects and initiatives related to ageing: The University Hospital of Getafe and Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal in Madrid.

The Hospital Universitario de Getafe (HUG) has set one of its main official research programs on Aging Frailty and Disability. Several research groups at the Hospital are engaged in different activities related to this field, and a Clinical Research Unit specifically designed for older people has also been developed. The Geriatric Department leads a number of European projects including the coordination of 3 PF7 Research Projects and a project funded by the Second Health program of the DG SANCO, all of them focused on frailty and funded by the European Commission.

HUG has a large tradition in caring for older patients. Its Geriatric Department works since 1991 and currently attends patients along its Units: Acute Care Unit (1800 patients/year), Orthogeriatric and Interconsultation Unit (800 patients/year), Day Hospital (300 patients/year), Outpatient Office (4000 patients/year), and Domiciliary Care Unit (1200 patients/year). We have accreditation for training specialists in Geriatrics by both Ministries of Health and Education.

During summer 2013, the Region of Madrid, through its University Hospital of Getafe, was awarded by the European Commission as one of the 32 European Reference Sites on innovation in active and healthy aging due to the innovation-based approach of the hospital’s geriatric department to active and healthy ageing.

The team of HUG participates actively in all the Actions Groups of the EIP-AHA, the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing leading the Sub-group of Frailty within the A3 Action Group (Frailty and Functional Decline, both physical and cognitive).

Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal (HURYC) is a 1,000 bed University hospital in Madrid. It provides comprehensive health care in all medical and surgical specialities, and has a basic research department and major research infrastructures. It has an established research institute (IRYCIS) that encompasses basic, translational and clinical research departments, with all the required infrastructures to perform phase I to IV clinical trials, including full laboratory and imaging equipment. It ranks first in Madrid and third in Spain in production of biomedical research, working in partnership with more than 50 international leading centres.

The Geriatric Department of HURYC has a longstanding expertise in clinical research in Alzheimer’s disease, sarcopenia and in the appropriate use of drugs in older subjects, being the leading group in Spain in the areas of appropriateness of drug use and discrimination in clinical trials in older subjects. Research in this area includes participation in the SENATOR FP7 funded study. It has been part of most of the very recent international efforts to define sarcopenia and frailty, including the definition of standard measurements and cut-points of the parameters used in the definition, and of relevant outcomes to be used in research of exercise, nutrition and drug interventions. It is partnering with other institutions in the research of biomarkers in these conditions. It has also started some projects on IT and home monitoring with the Instituto Carlos III, the leading organization in this area in Spain. Moreover, it has sound long term expertise in the design and conduct of clinical trials in old and frail individuals over 80 years old, in the community or in nursing homes (Dr. Cruz-Jentoft is part of the EMA working group that is defining frailty and comorbidity for regulatory purposes of new drugs). It belongs to GARN, the IAGG led international research network of centres of excellence in geriatric research, and to the EADC (European Alzheimer’s Disease Consortium