Health Project

Fundació Vila Casas was founded in 1986 with the aim of improving health and promoting socio-health research, thanks to the connection between its founder, Antoni Vila Casas, and the pharmaceutical sector. Initially named Fundació Cor, it focused on heart-related diseases and awarding research grants in order to encourage research and the role of the pharmaceutical industry. It was subsequently renamed Fundació Vila Casas and incorporated the promotion of contemporary Catalan art into its aims. In 1996, through a collaboration agreement with Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), the Projecte Quiral (Quiral Project) was created to establish a bridge of dialogue between healthcare professionals.

The Projecte Quiral includes the Informe Quiral (Quiral Report) and Opinión Quiral (Quiral Opinion) debates.

The Informe Quiral analyses the information disseminated in society on medical and health-related issues. It is a research project that focuses on one health-related theme per year. On the one hand, it studies the information published by the mass media and social media, and, on the other hand, it explores the knowledge, opinions and attitudes of the general public on the issue in question, as well as their searches for information. The Opinión Quiral are colloquia that provide an opportunity for the general public to debate the topic, chosen each year by the Informe Quiral, with specialists, representatives from the media and institutions in the socio-health sector. The aim of these encounters and their subsequent publications is to promote social debate and the dissemination of quality information on health-related issues that may be of interest at the time.

It is now a well-established project that has contributed to improving the quality of medical-related information and has become an important sociological instrument, an annual reference point of the great health-related issues of concern in our society and their coverage in the media.

Alongside such work, Fundació Vila Casas is committed to developing solidarity work by collaborating with projects that are aimed at improving healthcare services. In this regard, we have entered into agreements with some of the prestigious Catalan hospitals such as Hospital Clínic, Hospital Universitari Vall d’Hebron and Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, all based in Barcelona.

Moreover, Fundació Vila Casas has recently begun working to on a closer connection between its two main aims: the promotion of contemporary Catalan art and health. Thus, Museu Can Framis organizes yoga, breathing and meditation sessions to improve health and well-being through art. These activities are open to the general public as well as patients and families from institutions such as Fundació Oncològica Infantil Enriqueta Villavecchia (Child Oncology foundation), the BCN-PID Foundation (Primary Immunodeficiencies foundation) and Escola de Salut Catalana (Catalan Health School).

Finally, Fundació Vila Casas seeks to enable hospital premises to be a medium for art, and its curative power, to be accessible to society. Therefore, we are launching initiatives with contemporary artists to make hospitals more humane and comfortable places

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