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For more than 15 years, successive governments have tried in turn to impose computerized medical records on policyholders, without success. The Minister of Health Olivier Véran hopes to succeed this time by launching this Thursday “My health space”.
The government will officially launch “My health space” on Thursday, a new digital public service integrating the computerized medical record that governments have failed to impose for 15 years and which will now be created automatically for each insured person.
Exit the DMP, make way for “My health space”
Don’t call it DMP anymore. The acronym has changed its meaning too much: personal medical file, then shared and now lost to the cause. Make way for “My health space”, supposed to break the bad luck, even if its launch with great fanfare has already been delayed by a month.
Simple ignition delay, due to the fifth wave of Covid-19. Olivier Véran must press the button on Thursday, to trigger nothing less than a “new revolution” in the health system, comparable to the deployment of the Vitale card a quarter of a century ago, according to the invitation sent to the press by the Ministry of Health.
Store your health data securely
Operational since January 1, this public service available in the form of a website – pending the app for smartphones – should allow “all French people to store and access their health data in complete confidence and security“.
Prescriptions, hospitalization reports, analysis results… All medical documents are intended to be found there, at the initiative of the caregivers or the insured person himself, who can also provide information on his vaccines, allergies and ongoing treatments.
Everyone will also have secure messaging to exchange information with their healthcare professionals, and a diary to manage their medical appointments. Basic services that will be supplemented by a “catalog” applications referenced by the public authorities, for example for the monitoring of chronic diseases, teleconsultation or prevention.
The “revolution” will be rapid: by the summer, some 68 million French people – including children – will automatically be provided with a “health space”, unless they take the step of refusing it.
Fifteen years of failures
To do this, you will need to use a “provisional code” received by email or by post, valid only for six weeks. After this period, it will still be possible to close your “health space”, but your data will remain archived for ten years by the Health Insurance.
This so-called “opt-out” logic contrasts with the previous versions of the DMP, based on voluntary membership, the limits of which were right: the counter stopped at 10 million in mid-2021, far from the objective. of 40 million by 2023, displayed by the executive at the start of the five-year term.
After fifteen years of failures and repeated reminders, “some proactive actions were needed“, told AFP the president of France Assos Santé, Gérard Raymond, a supporter of this “form of citizen empowerment“.
Its federation of patient associations, however, insists on “local support for users“, especially those at risk of “find themselves in difficulty with digital tools“: old, poor, rural, disabled, migrants…
Will “My health space” be used?
The communication effort of the authorities will be decisive. The pilot phase carried out last year – in the middle of summer – in three departments (Haute-Garonne, Loire-Atlantique, Oise), is proof of this: less than 0.7% refusal, out of 3.3 million insured .
A Soviet score that attests to a “forced passage“and one”denial of patients’ right to free and informed consent“, takes offense at the Syndicate of General Medicine (SMG), a very minority in the profession.
Despite its planned generalization, “My health space” is not immune to a new fiasco, if the files created remain abandoned empty shells. Installed near Toulouse, Dr Jean-Louis Bensoussan “used it very little” during the experiment.
Moreover “no patient offered it to me“, adds the secretary general of MG France (main organization among liberal generalists), who says he has received “very little information” on this tool which he “does not necessarily need”. The hardest part remains to be done.
Creating a DMP is no longer possible
On the ameli.fr website, we can read that “since July 1, 2021, it is no longer possible to create new Shared Medical Records (DMP) on the dmp.fr website, nor with healthcare professionals or at the reception desk of health insurance funds. But patients and health professionals can continue to consult the digital health records already open and add useful information: drug treatments and care, hospitalization and consultation reports, test results… This interruption of the creation of new DMPs is necessary to prepare for the arrival of the My health space service, which will be offered to everyone at the start of 2022. My health space is the new secure service that will allow everyone to take part in their health on a daily basis . It will give access to the DMP as well as secure messaging, a health agenda and a catalog of digital health services referenced by the State. All users who already had a DMP before July 1, 2021 will automatically find their data when activating My health space..