The National Assembly voted on Friday to create a digital health space for each user. The free measure should be implemented from January 1, 2022.
“Put the user back at the heart of the system, to make him an actor”. This is the will of the Minister of Health, Agnès Buzyn. For this purpose, from 1er January 2022, all French people will soon have their own digital health space. People born on or after this date will automatically be assigned one, except in the event of opposition. The completely free measure was passed by the National Assembly on Friday March 22 as part of the review of the Health Act. Its objective is to “make it possible to bring together on the same platform all the existing services”, including the shared medical record (DMP)its “cornerstone”, according to the rapporteur of the text Thomas Mesnier (LREM).
The DMP, launched last November by Social Security, can contain hospital reports, test results or prescriptions. In addition to this file, the digital health space should allow the patient to inform whether or not he wishes to donate his organs, who to notify in the event of an accident, or to provide data produced by various health applications ( heart rate, athletic performance, etc.). Finally, it will provide access to data relating to the reimbursement of health expenses thanks to the integration of Améli.fr, managed by Social Security.
France being “late” in this area, this measure is “necessary” at the risk of seeing “swarms of proposals for digital spaces” less secure, assured Agnès Buzyn before elected officials on Friday. “Digital health services for the user are still too embryonic in France. This paradoxically constitutes an opportunity for the State and the public authorities: it is still possible to take up the subject to set a framework before initiatives disparate, uncoordinated and non-interoperable services are multiplying in terms of digital services for users, amplifying the current disorder, with a return to the past almost impossible”, argue the authors of the final report on the Health System Transformation Strategy.
A consensual measure
Despite some concerns from the left about data privacy, the measure is relatively popular. An amendment by the Communist deputies specifies, however, that data from the digital space cannot be required when concluding a complementary health contract, while another LREM wants to allow health professionals to access the DMP to transmit documents.
The establishment of the digital health space is expected to cost 50 million euros for the period 2019-2022, the authorities informed. Moreover, according to Thomas Mesnier, 4.1 million DMPs were opened in mid-February and this is not about to stop. The National Health Insurance Fund (Cnam) predicts 10 million by the end of the year and 40 million by 2022.
This government measure comes shortly after the launch of a digital platform for sharing medical information by the private sector. In February, based on the principle that “to date there is no technology to link the IT systems of healthcare establishments and the software of practitioners with their patients”, the start-up InnovHealth and Alcatel Lucent Enterprise joined forces to provide the sick a kind of medical passport called Pass’Care. This platform, whose subscription costs 2.99 euros per month, also aims to make patients masters of their health data. Eventually, its founder, Adnan El Bakri, would like to use this system to replace the vital card in emerging countries.
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