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Long-time invisible, the role of informal carers in providing assistance to elderly patients losing their autonomy is gaining recognition. A policy in favour of carers coordinated with that aimed at the people being cared for is necessary, but it is struggling to establish itself in France. Some progress can however be seen with the French bill on adapting society to the ageing of the population., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Background: In France, the referring GP is responsible for coordination of the patient's care pathway, but GPs appear to have few resources to achieve this task A general practitioner support network (Arespa) was developed in the Franche-Comté region (Arespa)for complex patients., Objective: To analyse the functioning and effects, of this network on the GP's practices., Methods: Qualitative research. Material based on individual semistructured interviews of members of Arespa staff and regulatory bodies; collective interviews of all coordinators (12; 4 groups) and general practitioners (37, 7 groups). Clinical vignettes were used to determine the nature of the coordinators' work; the doctor's perception of the network and how and why they used it; the perceived impact of the network; but also regulation byfunding bodies., Results: This coordinating network can be considered to be an original case management organisation, as it addresses the consequences of the disease on the patient's everyday life in order to facilitate the care pathway and life. The main differences are that it is primarily directed to GPs and coordinator interventions may therefore focus on treatment the consequences of disease rather than the patient's expectations. Secondly, there are no eligibility criteriafora patient's entitlement toArespa intervention, which depends exclusively on each doctor's assessment., Discussion: This approach is part of a specific institutional and regulatoryframework designed to ensure the use and individual and collective efficacy of the Arespa network. The authors discuss the results in the light of the literature on case management.

Background: Avoidable hospitalizations are used as a performance indicator of primary care in many countries. We investigate here the validity and usefulness of this measure both at a global scale and for the French healthcare system., Methods: A scoping study was performed to take a critical look at this concept. The different uses of avoidable hospitalizations as an indicator have already been reported in two recent systematic literature reviews., Results: Rates of avoidable hospitalizations seem to be far more correlated with the socioeconomic attributes of patients than with primary care supply. The few studies conducted in France confirm this international trend. Several weaknesses have been spotted in the building of this indicator: the choice of conditions that can be considered as sources of avoidable hospitalizations, their identification among hospitalization disease codes, the quality of hospital coding procedures, the ecological bias in the data collection of illustrative variables., Conclusion: Guidelines for improvement of this indicator are provided. In particular, we discuss the possibility of its use at the scale of the whole healthcare system., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Context: In France, a new payment for performance (P4P) scheme for primary care physicians was introduced in 2009 through the 'Contract for Improving Individual Practice' programme. Its objective was to reduce healthcare expenditures while enhancing improvement in guidelines' observance. Nevertheless, in all countries where the scheme was implemented, it raised several concerns in the domain of professional ethics., Objective: To draw out in France the ethical tensions arising in the general practitioner's (GP) profession linked to the introduction of P4P., Method: Qualitative research using two focus groups: first one with a sample of GPs who joined P4P and second one with those who did not. All collective interviews were recorded and fully transcribed. An inductive analysis of thematic content with construction of categories was conducted. All the data were triangulated., Results: All participants agreed that conflicts of interest were a real issue, leading to the resurgence of doctor's dirigisme, which could be detrimental for patient's autonomy. GPs who did not join P4P believed that the scheme would lead to patient's selection while those who joined P4P did not. The level of the maximal bonus of the P4P was considered low by all GPs. This was considered as an offense by non-participating GPs, whereas for participating ones, this low level minimised the risk of patient's selection., Conclusion: This work identified several areas of ethical tension, some being different from those previously described in other countries. The authors discuss the potential impact of institutional contexts and variability of implementation processes on shaping these differences.

Objectives: Since 2006 France experiences an innovative version of Gate-keeping which aims at regulating access to outpatient specialist care. We describe the reform's initial objectives, the political pathway which lead to the implementation of a reshaped reform and discuss the first outcomes after 1 year implementation. In the conclusion, we try to catch a glimpse for future steps of the reform., Methods: In order to observe the implantation and impact on the reform, we used national sickness fund databases and a sample of 7198 individuals from the 2006 French Health, Health Care and Insurance Survey (ESPS), including health, socio-economic and insurance status, questions relating to patient's understanding and compliance with the scheme, self-assessed unmet specialist needs since the reform., Results and Discussion: 2006 results show that 94% chose a preferred doctor, in a vast majority their family doctor. Impact on access to specialist care appears significant for the less well off and those not covered by a complementary insurance. From the specialist's side, new constraints on access to care seem to have been offset by rises in fee schedules., Conclusion: Notwithstanding disappointing short terms results, the new scheme may however lead up to reinforced managed care reforms.

Aims: To identify maternities (in terms of level of activity and linkage with pediatric services) where, in 1991, mothers gave birth to infants of gestational age less than 33 weeks and/or with birth weight under 1500 g. To analyse factors linked to the probability of choosing a particular maternity as place of delivery for this population and measure the impact of maternal transferts on the rates of deliveries. To estimate the number of neonate transferts which could be avoided with simple recommendations. To propose policies that would allow France to come closer to the results of other reference countries in term of management of obstetrical and neonate care., Material and Method: We extracted from a retrospective sample of 84,279 births (out of a total of 770,148), 717 infants meeting previously defined criteria and related to the population described above, using univariate and multivariate analysis and logistic regression., Results: The Odds-ratio for a delivery to take place in a maternity with a volume of more than 2000 deliveries a year, compared with those doing less than 300 deliveries, is 4, 12. Only 15.8% of those deliveries took place in maternities linked to a level 3 pediatric unit (i.e where an intensive care neonates unit was located in the same building). 39.5% of births took place in level 1 maternities where no required pediatric service existed. Logistic regression techniques showed that the choice of a maternity for mother referral was more linked to the number of deliveries than to its level of pediatric services. In the studied population, 46% of the difference between the observed number of births in high volume maternities (compared to the expected number) could be explained by a maternal referral. The analysis of deliveries showed that for 34% of mothers who gave birth to a baby in a level 1 or 2 maternity, there was a possibility of being referred easily in a level 3 maternity., Conclusion: This study shows that the level of care of mothers at high risk of delivering a very premature and/or hypotrophic infant is far from international standards. Simple actions could double the number of births taking place in adapted maternities. We propose to both obstetricians and pediatrists, a common program to enhance the level of care.

The authors review the difficulties presented by the description of medical data, on the basis of the french experience with the programme to medicalize the hospital information system. They explain the different steps in preparing a hospital discharge abstract, and the difficulties presented by each one. They particularly stress the phase of hierarchization in choosing the principal diagnosis. They propose some solutions to improve data quality and an approach based on medical practice patterns.