Organization - Clínic Respiratory Institute

The Clínic Respiratory Institute (ICR) provides healthcare through its Pulmonology, Allergy, and Thoracic Surgery Departments. These three departments provide specialized care 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, both for admitted patients and for patients requiring urgent care.

Among the activities led by the Clínic Respiratory Institute, the following are particularly noteworthy:

• Multidisciplinary committee for the diagnosis and treatment of severe airway diseases. The ICR is the first national and international centre to have a specific multidisciplinary committee, involving pulmonologists, allergists, radiologists, surgeons, immunologists, pharmacologists, and microbiologists, to evaluate and discuss the diagnosis and treatment of patients with any of these diseases (COPD, severe asthma, bronchiectasis).
• Pulmonary Hypertension Unit (PHU). The ICR runs the Pulmonary Hypertension Unit at the Hospital Clínic, which is a reference unit in Catalonia and Spain (CSUR) and participates in the European Reference Network (ERN-LUNG). The Unit is made up of a multidisciplinary team of professionals who provide a comprehensive approach to the diagnosis and treatment of all forms of pulmonary hypertension (PH). Specifically, the unit has extensive experience in the use of complex drugs, pulmonary endarterectomy surgery, and pulmonary angioplasty for the treatment of chronic thromboembolic PH, in the treatment of PH in patients with liver cirrhosis or congenital heart disease (in collaboration with the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu in Barcelona), and in surgery and obstetric care for patients with PH. It also carries out outstanding research and specialized training activities.
• Interstitial Lung Diseases. The Pulmonology Department includes a care programme for patients with interstitial lung disease and other rare respiratory diseases. This programme aims to provide early diagnosis, follow-up, and personalized treatment for patients with diffuse interstitial diseases and rare inflammatory lung diseases.
• Respiratory Intensive Care Unit. The ICR has the only Intensive Care Unit in Spain dedicated exclusively to the treatment of critical respiratory patients. The Unit incorporates the latest life support and monitoring technology and has 8 critical care beds and 8 intermediate care beds. Its technical equipment and professionals ensure that patients receive the best clinical care. Several professionals at the Clínic Respiratory Institute are international leaders in the diagnosis and treatment of infectious respiratory diseases such as pneumonia, advanced ventilatory support, and the treatment of people with critical respiratory diseases in general. This is an open ICU where we work every day to provide the most humane treatment possible to patients and their families.
• Home respiratory therapies. The ICR has a multidisciplinary team to treat sleep-related breathing disorders, such as sleep apnoea syndrome (SAS), in which it is a national and international leader in research and teaching.
• Lung cancer. ICR professionals actively participate, in coordination with other departments at the Hospital Clínic, in the diagnosis and surgical treatment of lung cancer. ICR professionals have developed various projects to improve the early diagnosis of lung cancer, with the aim of improving patient survival. These include a screening project for people at risk (male and female smokers and ex-smokers over the age of 50) who are offered a smoking cessation programme and a chest CT scan for the early detection of any lung nodules that may be tumours in the early stages. Another initiative, still in the experimental stage, is the determination of the benignity or malignancy of a pulmonary nodule with the help of canine olfaction.