With fifty million French people registered on Doctolib, the leader in online medical appointment booking is widely scrutinized in the world of health.
On Wednesday November 20, the French company announced, as it does every year, the features it intended to develop in the next twelve months. Virtual telephone assistant with artificial intelligence to relieve secretarial work, development of patient-caregiver messaging… The controversy, however, came from a novelty which may seem less revolutionary: a tab, called “Health”, allowing data to be brought together health of a patient, has revived fears of seeing the private group further expand its place in this sensitive sector.
For several decades, the public authorities have been advancing this centralization of the data of each insured person: called “personal medical file”, then “shared medical file”, the project has been relaunched by Health Insurance, since 2022, with the “ My health space”. It now has more than fifteen million users.
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For its part, Doctolib wants to encourage patients to submit their medical results, their prescriptions, their history, their treatments, their allergies, their vaccination record on its new application, etc. This should make it easier for caregivers, clients of the platform, but also to send personalized prevention messages.
“Data hosting is a public service”
A competitive approach? The question is being asked among the ranks of doctors, although Doctolib denies it. “It is not a question of privatizing the “digital health record” or creating another digital safe. Our software is the first contributor to the public platform “My health space” »underlines the group's boss, Stanislas Niox-Chateau, who also recalls that the State is one of its first shareholders through the Public Investment Bank.
It remains to be seen whether patients will take the “double approach” of transmitting information in two digital spaces. “We have no intention of creating duplicates,” also responds Jean-Urbain Hubau, the French general manager of Doctolib, by ensuring that he has proposed a “100% interoperability” at the Ministry of Health.
On the Health Insurance side, we still wonder about the positioning of this offer. “It seems very close to what “My health space” offersnotes Thomas Fatôme, its general director. We have always considered it useful, relevant and even necessary for private and public actors to be involved in the same digital health roadmap, and this is what is happening, which is very positive. But the reference place for hosting health data is the public service, with “My health space”, it is a choice of the legislator, and there is a real ambiguity in proposing another. » The head of Health Insurance expresses his concern and says he is waiting for a « clarification » from Doctolib, because “there must be no competition”.
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