ICO start a new year with future objectives
To
start a new year, once the summer holidays have finished, makes
one think about the things that we have done but, above
all, about the things which we want to do in the near future.
It is now the moment to set new objectives which guarantee the
relevance of our Institution in the framework of an eventual
Institut Nacional de Càncer de Catalunya . In this new
framework, which is now starting to be defined within the background
of Health Care in our country, ICO has to face its responsibilities
as the Integral Centre for Cancer that it is nowadays.
This responsibility has to be proven not by looking back to past
excellence, but exercising the capacities to face more ambitious
challenges. The past, brilliant though it may be, is only history
which we can be proud of and learn from. What really counts,
however, is the future. This must fulfil three basic axes: the
capacity to give quality service to the patients; the capacity
to achieve the satisfaction of the professionals and the capacity
to be a referent for society.
These capacities have to be compatible with a possible financial
reality, so we have to be both efficient and effective. We have
to be sensible and accurate when using the public money which
citizens put at our disposal. Our management must be austere
and we can not waste a single euro. The best management, the
one with best quality, is doing things properly the first time.
For this, it is necessary to make clinic decisions, both diagnostic
and therapy, based on expertise. Excellence is the aim; it is
our goal. Excellence in the assistance and the treatment of the
patients is the best we can give in return to their trust. But,
in order to reach excellence we have to invest all kinds of efforts
in the fields of research and innovation. ICO’s reality
in epidemiologic and translational basic and clinic research,
as corresponds to an integral centre for cancer, is the reference
model for the future. In the same way, we can speak of a multidisciplinary
assistance model which still has to improve significantly so
that it can be more of a reality.
Prevention, assistance and research are, then, the pillars of
our Institution. They are the way in which we can fulfil our
mission: “To work in order to minimize the impact of cancer
in Catalonia”. After all, it is the effect of the efficient
application of our knowledge. This is one of the greatest challenges
of the future. In a global, developing world, the use of tools
for information and communication, the capacities of all organizations
and, above all, of those whose fundament lies on their knowledge,
will have their future determined by their capacity to manage
it efficiently.
It is now the moment for a new strategic plan which, without
being oblivious of our past and taking off from what we have
achieved until now, leads us to be the Referent of a very likely
eventual Institut Nacional del Càncer de Catalunya (see
below). It is the will of the management to orientate this process
in a participative way in order to obtain everyone’s commitment.
This statement wants to go further than just what is meant with
a “politically correct” speech, due to the fact that
it is based on experiences and convictions. Experience? We know
that without participation there is no possible commitment. Convictions?
We believe in the people’s worth as the motor of any human
work.
Joaquim Esperalba
General Manager of ICO
1 National Cancer Institute of Catalonia (N.
of the T.)
