The world after
The Covid-19 epidemic has magnified the extreme fragility of the French healthcare system, facing unequaled demand for care and ending up almost bled dry. Preserving its mission implies a real transformation.
How to master the flow of patients infected by or at risk from the Covid-19?
It is about war, general mobilisation… Of course, health professionals will face with an unwavering commitment. Personal constraints are forgotten, risks are assumed, all energies are gathered to serve patients.
Beyond their dedication, the equation does not hold with hundreds of thousands of patients: the need for equipment and human resources is non-stop enlarging.
The effectiveness in managing the epidemic will consist in minimising the number of patients referred to hospital emergency services so that they can continue to treat patients under reasonable conditions. Among the many means available to relieve hospitals, most have been largely under-exploited so far, notably digital services. All these solutions that can help fight the epidemic today are structuring for the health system tomorrow.
Which innovations to better anticipate and to care in times of health crisis?
The Shared Medical File (SMF) is a valuable tool to assess in a few clicks and remotely the level of vulnerability of a patient and decide on his course of care. However, only eight million French citizens enrolled in the SMF, which means that only 12% of the population is covered Vs. 40 million potential files.
Teleconsultation is becoming part of everyday life. In the current context, where we know that limiting movement helps stem the spread of the virus, it is used massively.
Teleconsultations spread like wildfire among the French population: 936,000 the week of March 30 against 10,000 in early March, online appointment booking platforms are developing very quickly, the French leader is already equipping the Public Hospitals of Paris.
Several approved operators hosting health data (HDS) offering secure cloud services. Saving this information makes it possible to centralise the data, therefore, to anticipate needs.
The data of these operators assisted by Artificial Intelligence are able to help the health authorities in understanding and forecasting the evolution of the disease and, therefore, to put in place suitable procedures to fight against the virus. Data and AI help in parallel to anticipate the adequate resources and better disseminate the means.
Hospitalisation at home is an effective lever to dyke the epidemic. Monitoring less severe patients at home relieves hospital emergencies services and limit the rate of contamination of the virus. Mobile applications dedicated to health are also very valuable tools in the monitoring patients remotely.
Will the hospital regain its historic function?
These changes in practices thanks to the digital technologies and new views on the health system should be seen as an opportunity, boosting the return of the hospitals to the original purpose: to care serious cases and real emergencies. The French citizens must also stop looking at the hospital with the eyes of demanding consumers; emergencies are not a service like any other. Patients must become more proactive in this global change by adopting other habits to simplify the lives of professionals.
In 2021, even if we do not know the contours of the new healthcare ecosystem whose Covid-19 will have precipitated the mutation, we know that the virus will have been wiped out, that most of the fledgling solutions today will be well installed in the landscape of the health, that the value of medicine will be again recognised because health is priceless.
