Doctors-Covid, Let's Speak Out! 1,000 doctors shared their experiences of the Covid-19 crisis, particularly during the first lockdown (March-May 2020), in partnership with Le Quotidien du Médecin (
From May 18 to June 29, 2020, from the beginning of the first gradual lifting of lockdown, Res publica, in partnership with Le Quotidien du Médecin and Décision et Stratégie Santé , carried out a survey of 1,000 doctors, with Jenparle , Res publica's collaborative dialogue and consultation tool.
"Of the thousand professionals who responded, many expressed surprise and dismay at the sudden onset of the crisis. Most emphasized the unpreparedness of the healthcare system as a whole. And a good number reported new ways of working, driven more or less by necessity or constraint, which they felt could truly be game-changers in post-Covid France." Le Quotidien
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In the summer of 2020, doctors debated 46 proposals online to improve healthcare after Covid-19 . These proposals addressed healthcare governance, care and therapeutic solutions, human resources and training, and equipment. Among these proposals, the need to empower healthcare professionals by reforming hospital governance was particularly emphasized. In this regard, the lack of local access and excessive centralization of hospitals were criticized.
We draw three conclusions from this investigation that can be quickly put into action:
On the one hand, in the healthcare sector, as in many others, the crisis has revealed that it is possible to operate differently, with greater flexibility, trust, responsiveness, and inventiveness. While some fear a likely return to the old ways, particularly because necessity dictated the course of action, it should not be overlooked that many healthcare professionals, both caregivers and non-caregivers, have experimented with alternative approaches and found them appealing.
On the other hand, among the possibilities, health has experienced a period of breaking down silos which reveals the complementarity of approaches. Some were already known, such as the enlightening exchanges between the patient and the doctor; others were ignored, such as the logics of co-production between the different categories of caregivers, less hierarchical, while still others were simply neglected: the articulation of the action of all health actors in a territory with a particular role for local authorities (from the municipality to the department).
Finally, it appears that the future of these "new developments" largely depends on how the new collaborations between healthcare stakeholders are maintained in the coming months. Pillar 4 of the Ségur de la Santé (Health Investment Plan), "Uniting healthcare stakeholders in local areas to serve users," still needs to be implemented by building on local and regional dynamics and by fostering dialogue with all relevant stakeholders.
The quality of healthcare services at the local level will depend primarily on the quality of dialogue among all stakeholders in this field. Developing local healthcare strategies will give stakeholders greater flexibility to organize an agile and responsive approach to meeting a region's healthcare needs, clarify and streamline the organization of unscheduled and emergency care, and structure community-based care and the interface between urban and hospital settings.
Collaborative dialogue
