25/09/2015

UIC Barcelona launches the first Postgraduate degree in Patient Advocacy in Spain

During the month of October the Albert J. Jovell Institute for Public Health and Patients at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC Barcelona) will offer a new Postgraduate degree in Patient Advocacy. This is the first postgraduate degree in Spain which will focus on training professionals in skills and competences that will encourage patient participation at different levels, thus creating a care process based on care that focuses on the needs and rights of patients in terms of health policies and institutional strategies.

The creation of the Spanish Patient's Forum (FEP) in 2004 in Spain marked the beginning of an organised and representative movement of patients affected by different pathologies at a national level. According to Dr M. Dolores Navarro, Director of the  Albert J. Jovell Institute for Public Health and Patients "we are currently facing a great challenge and that is to train professionals who are capable of defending patients’ rights in the various governmental healthcare institutions at both a national and an international level".

The Postgraduate degree in Patient Advocacy will be divided into modules and will be taught partially online. Both national and international experts from the field of Patient Advocacy will participate in the teaching process, via online sessions. This postgraduate degree programme is aimed at professionals with a university degree who work in the area of promoting patient participation in decision-making with various profiles: healthcare professionals, leaders of patient organisations and administration members, as well as other cross-disciplinary healthcare professionals such as lawyers, sociologists, economists, journalists and educators etc.