Development of outpatient care, reduction of beds, flow of patients to regulate: the hospital is increasingly using start-ups to manage care pathways despite the reluctance of caregivers.
It was listening to his wife, an anesthetist-resuscitator in Alsace, tell him in the spring of 2020, in the midst of the Covid crisis, the incessant calls from other establishments to find out if he had “available beds” that Roderick Ballan imagined his beginning.
“I realized that communication between hospitals was non-existent,” says the biomedical engineer who wanted to “interconnect” healthcare facilities thanks to his platform called MedBed360.
Since then, four hospitals in Grand Est have joined this solution accessible to health facilities, Samu, regional health agencies, allowing real-time information on hospital vacancies.
Faced with new organizational contingencies, hospitals, whose information systems are generally obsolete, are turning to young companies that offer solutions for managing patient care pathways.
“Free Up Beds”
In September, the Foch hospital in the Paris region chose the start-up My Hostellol to develop a hospital hospitality platform listing the rooms available at partner hotels, for patients on the eve of admission or their relatives.
“The goal is to free up beds within the hospital to accommodate other patients, especially those coming from emergencies,” explains Philippe Guymarho, director of projects at Foch.
The company must accompany the establishment until the start of its own hospital hotel.
For its part, La Poste, the main bank that finances public hospitals, is developing its portfolio of administrative management start-ups in the healthcare sector. It recently acquired stakes in Nouveal e-santé and Happytal, both of which specialize in digitizing the care pathway.
Nouveal manages pre-admission patient administration and post-operative outpatient telemonitoring for approximately 350 healthcare facilities. He is at the origin of the Covidom application which allows patients affected by Covid to be followed up at home.
Happytal, present in more than 400 facilities, is a concierge service for patients that allows them to make their pre-admission or single room request online.
“We want to help spread these new ways of relating between patients and caregivers, hospitals need partners who come and provide them with tools,” says Delphine Mallet, director of the health and autonomy division of La Poste.
Culture shock
To establish themselves in the hospital environment, these young companies have to overcome some barriers because healthcare professionals are “reluctant” when they arrive, according to Arnaud Have, from the consultancy Sia Partners. “Often they’ve been forced to adjust to new tools, so there’s a tiredness. If the tool wastes time, caregivers won’t use it.”
According to the Hospi’up guide, developed in 2021 by the French Hospital Federation to link hospitals and start-ups, “72% of establishments have never worked with a start-up” and “60% of start-ups have encountered difficulties to work in a hospital”.
Some healthcare professionals have a negative view of the emergence of these start-ups whose quest for profitability they believe runs counter to the mission of the public hospital.
Le Canard Enchaîné recounted in the spring the distrust of the Paris hospital staff after the AP-HP signed a contract with the start-up Noé Santé to “optimize the average length of stay of patients”.
In 2019, France 2 also pointed the finger at the commercial practices of Happytal, of which La Poste is now the “guarantor”, reassured Delphine Mallet.
But the health crisis “has broken the locks”, decrypts Arnaud Have. The emergence of digital technology in patient care is “a real underlying trend,” according to him.
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