The Sant Joan de Déu Children’s Hospital in Barcelona operates one of the most advanced data-driven management systems in the world.
Its goal is clear: to improve both patient experience and hospital efficiency.
Inside its CORTEX room, a massive real-time dashboard displays data from hospitalization, ICU, emergency rooms, operating theatres, and even from patients remotely monitored at home.
Data are captured, processed, and visualized real-time, enabling teams to anticipate needs and allocate resources efficiently.
Many organizations aiming to “implement AI” are still light-years away from achieving this level of digital maturity. It is not easy to get to this high standard. It took years of internal development and a deep cultural transformation.
The digital model can predict what will happen next within a controlled environment using simple algorithms and accurate data flows.
But that is not Artificial Intelligence, it is Smart Digitalization.
We all know AI is already making tremendous progress in the health industry, in areas like medical imaging and diagnostics for example, where large datasets and tolerances for probabilistic outcomes are viable.
However, applying predictive AI in environments like hospital management, where data is extremely sensitive, data volumes are limited, and the margin for error is nearly zero, may not be the wisest choice. Smart digitalization does work.
AI could indeed play a role in achieving other objectives, like anticipating emergency admissions. The model could be developed by combining historical internal hospital data with external datasets such as air quality, traffic data, weather, epidemiology, school calendars, or Google search trends. But as the saying goes, you shouldn’t build the roof before the foundation.
The key message:
Before adopting AI, organizations need robust, interoperable, and ethically managed digital systems.
This case from Barcelona’s Sant Joan de Déu Hospital illustrates that digital transformation can already be intelligent, and it should be the most responsible step before Artificial Intelligence.
I’d love to hear your views:
How can Europe ensure that organizations' ambition for AI is grounded in strong digital foundations to ensure the development of High-Quality AI?
Special thanks to the Sant Joan de Déu Children’s Hospital in Barcelona for showcasing this case with the passion and focus on excellence that embeds everything they do.
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Comments
In reply to Thank you for sharing this!… by Claudia DE SESSA
Claudia, thank you for your comment and recommendation.
I am still learning about the European AI Innovation Ecosystem. I haven't had any specific project yet. The guide in the link is useful, thank you!
Thank you for sharing this! The EU has a network of European Digital Innovation Hubs that are specifically designed to help companies and public organisations - including hospitals - not only to adopt AI, but to accompany them across their digitalisation journey. Have you had any experience with them?
Mauro, this is a strong case — the CORTEX room is a clear case for foundations before AI.
I'd add one layer beneath the one you described. The dashboard lets teams anticipate needs and allocate resources, but that allocating still depends on the team's capacity to coordinate around what the data surfaces: who decides, how disagreement gets handled, whether the decision sticks.
In cancer care multidisciplinary teams the coordination layer is assumed rather than built, and it's usually the real constraint, not the data or the tool. The higher the stakes and the complexity, the more room this coordination takes, and it stays invisible until it breaks. So your foundation question has a floor under it: are strong digital foundations enough on their own, or does the capacity to act on them need building too?