SOS Médecins has obtained authorization from the CNIL to set up a health data warehouse. The federation of associations should collect its first data by the end of the month and conduct its first analyses before the end of the year. With what means, in what framework and for what objectives? We spoke with Céline Falco, doctor, initiator and coordinator of the project.
For the first time, the CNIL has given its green light (decision DT-2024-016, not public) for the creation of a health data warehouse (EDS) for community medicine. This database, baptized Contactis financed by the SOS Médecins France federation, which has 64 associations spread across the country, for around 1,300 doctors. A heavy burden, for which SOS Médecins is currently looking for partners to perpetuate the project, the creation and maintenance of these depots costing millions of euros.
The news is all the more noisy because in France, the storage and use of health data, particularly for research purposes, is the subject of a very intense debate going all the way back to the Council of State. The case of the Health Data Hub is still pending. Its operation is far from optimal, as highlighted by an interministerial report, and the question of data hosting at Microsoft (Azure) remains at the heart of the debates.
And Contact has many ambitions, as Jean-Christophe Masseron, doctor and president of SOS Médecins France, points out: ” This CNIL authorization marks the first milestone in an ambitious project: CONTACT will, starting this year, enable research and innovation projects to be carried out for the benefit of patients and access to care, including real-life studies. “The development and evaluation of AI algorithms is part of the project.
The project started with “a big frustration”
We spoke with Céline Falco, doctor, initiator and coordinator of the Contact project. She also defines herself as ” a bit geeky » told us how the idea came to him: « a big frustration ».
