By launching its new Health tab to centralize patients’ medical data, Doctolib has attracted the wrath of Health Insurance, worried about seeing the emergence of a privatized duplicate of My health space.
Since the end of November, Doctolib has welcomed a new tab, called Health, which allows you to gather medical information and share it easily with professionals (see our article). It allows you to centralize all your personal information related to your health, such as a vaccination record, any allergies, medical history, laboratory results or even current treatments. An addition which is supposed to facilitate the medical monitoring of patients.
But this system is reminiscent of My health space, the personal and secure digital space – a sort of digital safe – offered by Health Insurance and the Ministry of Health. It is, in a way, a digital health record for all policyholders in France – it has no less than 15 million users. Health Insurance sees an “ambiguity” between the two services, one public, the other commercial, and fears competition to the disadvantage of its system – Doctolib has more than 50 million users.
Health tab: a commercial replacement for My health space?
In a survey published in The WorldThomas Fatôme, the general director of Health Insurance, did not hide his dissatisfaction. “We have always considered it useful, relevant and even necessary for private and public actors to be on board the same roadmap on digital health, and this is what is happening, which is very positive,” he explains. “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”. He therefore waits for a “clarification” on the part of Doctolib, which defends “privatize the ‘digital health record’. “Our software is the first contributor to the public platform ‘My health space'”he says.
The story could have ended there, but a forum came to add its two cents. Indeed, the digital health delegation (DNS), an administration dependent on the ministry, discreetly circulated a paper that it wanted to publish in the newspaper, denouncing the risk of “privatization” essential health data, “valuation of our most sensitive data” and of “financialization of our health system”. She contacted healthcare unions and patient associations directly to have the text signed, without appearing to be a signatory herself. This did not fail to provoke a reaction!
However, officially, the ministry is in no case opposed to this function of Doctolib and puts forward a duty of neutrality, provided that “the regulatory framework is respected”. Stranger still, the current Minister of Health, Geneviève Darrieussecq, would not even have been informed of this maneuver. However, the “Health” tab of Doctolib will be gradually enriched in the coming months. Let’s hope the two entities find common ground…