Under the title “ICO, a common project: strategy for the future 2007-2011”, managers and executives of the three centres met last 15th December, in Barcelona, to speak about the assistance model, which must be unique and shared among the centres in Hospitalet, Girona and Badalona.
The objective of this meeting was to define the main lines that have to be the axis of the Strategic Plan 2007-2011. The general manager, Joaquim Esperalba, announced that this was to be the first of a series of discussion meetings aimed to promote the participation of the professionals in the elaboration of this document, which should be written before summer.
A publisher’s team with 22 ICO professionals, under the coordination of Josep Ramon Germà, head of the Medical Oncology Service in Hospitalet, is in charge of the writing of the Strategic Plan. The Plan must define what ICO wants to become in the next five years and set the necessary objectives (short, medium and long-dated) in order to reach them.
The characteristics that define the ICO assistance model are:

	Several centres and in a network with regional hospitals and, potentially, with the primary assistance centres.
	Integral approach to cancer: prevention, diagnostic, treatment and mitigation.
	The patient, as centre of the activity. Multi-disciplinary and multi-modal focus.
	Strongly linked with basic and clinic (translational) research, and also concerning epidemiology.
	Committed to the evaluation of results, and practice based on evidence.
	Evaluates and improves quality, and takes care of and promotes the professionals.
	Vocation of leadership in Catalonia, the whole State and, even more, internationally.