Primary care and prevention

Our research focus on primary care, on the interface between primary care and hospital, and on preventive healthcare. The French 2016 health law encourages the general practitioner (GP) to become the cornerstone of our health system. In this context, we are witnessing (i) the introduction of new organisations such as the grouping of primary care professionals in multi-professional health centres and the emergence of new methods of remunerating doctors, and (ii) the shift to ambulatory care, i.e. from a hospital-centred system to a system that makes the GP (and other primary care professionals) the coordinator of care pathways between ambulatory services and the hospital via the development of ambulatory surgery, for example in gynaecological-obstetrics, or the deployment of telemedicine devices for the management of patients with chronic diseases in primary care. Issues of access, financing, quality, effectiveness and efficiency of care are at the heart of our health services research issues, from the point of view of both the user/patient and the health professional.