About

The UOC-BSA Chair

The UOC-BSA Chair was possible thanks to the legacy of Romà Núñez Lloreda, a resident of Badalona who generously granted an inheritance to BSA.

Know more about our story in the short video below (in Catalan)

Who we are

We are an interdisciplinary research group within the UOC specialised in social and behavioural science.

Our objective is to understand and define patterns of behaviour that predict both individual and collective human activities in any context of the social sphere. We conduct research in four specific areas:

Health.
Education.
Governance and citizenship.
Behavioural economy.

Badalona Serveis Assistencials (BSA) is an integrated health and social care municipal organization. It provides care services to a total population of 435,000 inhabitants in the most populated suburban area of Barcelona.

It manages 7 Primary Care Centres, an acute care Hospital (“Hospital Municipal de Badalona”), an intermediate care Hospital (“Centre Sociosanitari el Carme”), an integrated Homecare Unit (“Servei d’Atenció Integral Domiciliària”) and a Centre for Sexual and Reproductive Health.

BSA has a special feature that distinguishes it from the rest of the healthcare providers in Catalonia and Spain, as it also provides the social care services for the region of Badalona and three other towns surrounding it.

This comprehensive model allows the organization to put in place a conceptual and operational person-centered approach with the unique purpose to meet both social and health care needs of citizens.

Mission and Vision

The UOC-BSA Chair’s mission is to develop significant advances in the application of Data Analytics and Big Data to the health environment through an interdisciplinary approach and the participation of all actors within the health system.

Our vision is to become a key player in transforming the healthcare industry through innovative solutions based on Data Analytics and Big Data technologies.

Challenges and goals

We want to contribute to:

Improve the quality of life of citizens and empower them in managing their own health;
Improve access to the health system while promoting equity;
Improve the efficiency of the system, facilitating its sustainability;

In the promotion, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and recovery areas within the provision of social and health services.

These challenges are approached following a series of objectives based on the trends that a majority of experts considers as essential for the construction of high-quality, efficient, sustainable health and social care systems.

These objectives are:

Encourage the use and participation of all actors in the fields of data analytics and big data to contribute to the improvement across the entire health continuum.
Generate innovative solutions based on the identification, integration, processing, analysis and visualization of data for decision making.
Promote the technological transference of the solutions produced to the health system.
Provide training in data analytics and big data.

And are performed by a multidisciplinary team involving:

Big data, analytics and data visualisation experts.
Health economists, sociologists, psychologists.
Health professionals.
Policy makers.
Citizens / patients.

People

Francisco Lupiáñez

Director

Francisco Lupiáñez is an Associate Professor at the School of Information and Communication Science, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), and researcher at the Open Evidence group, as well as partner and co-founder at the homonymous spin-off. His research field revolves around the social, economic, cultural and policy issues associated with information and communication technologies, specially focussing on Innovative Technologies; Networked Citizens; eHealth; and eInclusion. He is a top-level expert of multivariate statistical analysis and survey research and has a long experience in processing and analysing large dataset with state of the art techniques.

Pedro González

Analytics and Big Data Architect at UOC

Pedro González is an enthusiast of applied Data Analytics. He has more than 20 years’ experience in the development and design of Information Systems and data architectures. He holds a degree in computer science by the UPC BarcelonaTech, an MBA by ESADE, a Master in Innovation and Research by UPC BarcelonaTech and a postgraduate degree in BI at the UOC. He also participates as a collaborator in teaching activities in the Postgraduate degree on Big Data Analytics at the UPCSchool.

Ruth Vilar

Data Analyst and Data Engineer at UOC

Ruth Vilar is a motivated professional with solid knowledge and more than ten years’ experience in the field of ICT systems and in the project management sphere. She recently joined the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), where she works in projects related to the application of Data Analytics and Big Data technologies to the health sector. She holds a European Ph.D. degree in Telecommunications; M.Sc. degrees in Technologies, Systems and Networks (Universitat Politècnica de València) and Business Intelligence and Big Data (UOC); and a Postgraduate in Economy of Telecommunications. Moreover, Vilar is also mentoring students in the Business Intelligence and Big Data Programme at UOC.

Clara Faulí

Researcher at UOC

Researcher in the Open University of Catalonia and Open Evidence since January 2015. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Universitat Pompeu Fabra and a Master’s degree in Economics and Econometrics from the University of Kent. Prior to that, she worked as a trainee in the European Commission (DG Enterprise and Industry), and in Diputació de Barcelona. She participates in different projects for the European Commission and other public and private organisations. She works mainly in the areas of innovation, eHealth and policy analysis. Her expertise is data collection and analysis, including social experiments, focus groups, and statistical analysis.

Dimitra Anastasiadou

Psychologist and Researcher specialized in Eating Disorders and eHealth at UOC

Dimitra has been working as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the UOC since 2015, in national and European projects related to ICT for health and Behavioural Economics in health promotion and disease prevention. She is currently carrying out a project, funded by RecerCaixa (“La Caixa” Foundation), aimed to assess the clinical and cost utility of a combined intervention for Eating Disorders (EDs) that includes an online guided intervention through the mobile phone intervention “TCapp” plus standard face-to-face Cognitive Behavioural Treatment (CBT) compared to standard face-to-face CBT alone. She holds a PhD degree in Psychology (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain) and she is specialized in Clinical and Health Psychology and also in gender issues (MSc in Clinical and Health Psychology, MSc in Women and Health).

Pilar Saura

BSA Manager

Medical doctor by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), specialised in intensive care medicine. Pilar Saura holds an MBA by EADA, a master degree in Health Economy by the UPF and she is currently enrolled in a master on Business Intelligence and Big Data at the UOC. She has 10 years’ experience in clinical healthcare and research; 10 years’ experience in health management (ER and ICU); 4 years’ experience as a Medical Director; and 2 years’ experience as a manager.

Jordi Piera

Chief Information and Innovation Officer at BSA

Jordi Piera Jiménez is dually trained in Computing Science Engineering by the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and in Business Management and Administration also by the UAB. He also holds MSc in Telemedicine and E-health delivered by the UOC and is currently a PhD candidate on Information Society at UOC. He started working at BSA in 2000, first as an analyst and software developer inside the ICT Department where he actively participated in the deployment and implementation of the Electronic Medical Record and in a number or research and innovation projects. Currently, he leads both the ICT Department and the Research & Innovation Department.

Advisory board

The UOC-BSA Chair will establish a network of interested policy makers, health professionals and other stakeholders such as user representative organizations.

The Advisory Board will be invited to follow the progress of the Chair’s activities, discover the results obtained in order to receive strategic advice and orientations on the research, discuss technology roadmaps and evaluate the potential of the implemented solutions to be integrated in the health and care service provision.

Support

If you want to follow the example of Romà Núñez, do not hesitate to contact us and become a donor. Your contribution will be much appreciated!

If you are a company and want to sponsor a project, send us an email with your idea. We are open to develop projects and activities together!

Get to know more about the UOC’s Philanthropy Programme (in Catalan)