French clinical medicine is known all over the world, many French doctors have described the semiology of pathologies, which has allowed them to be studied and understood. Once the pathologies were defined, the first treatments were initiated. All patients with the same disease received the same treatment. Then the doctors realized two things: the drugs weren’t working for all patients, and medical experience had its limitations: “Just because a treatment seems to be working in a handful of patients doesn’t mean it’s really going to work to a large extent in all patients.” works”. This observation of the limits of clinical medicine was paired with an amazing acceleration of knowledge: in 2010 medical knowledge doubled every three years, in 1950 it doubled every 50 years. Scientific medicine was born.
In this context, with increasing knowledge and an increasingly scientific approach to medicine, doctors had to adapt. They have hyper-specialized to focus updating their knowledge in an area that a human brain can master. Some cardiologists only practice rhythmology, some oncologists only treat breast cancer, urologists only specialize in functional medicine, and many others. Each specializes in an area according to the amount of knowledge that needs to be updated and managed.
Parallel to these strong structural changes in medicine, the medical world has been suffering from severe pressure for more than fifty years, society does not have the means to finance the increasing health care expenditures. The French population is aging and is therefore increasingly exposed to complex pathologies. So in the end we have more patients and more and more complex care. In addition, as medicine evolves, the hyperspecialization of doctors means that a patient suffering from various pathologies must consult several specialists. The doctors work together and this coordination time shortens the treatment time. So here’s the situation: more and more patients with increasingly complex care, with a stable, hyper-specialized staff of nurses whose nursing time is being reduced within the bounds of an impossible increase in healthcare budgets.
Ways to improve the current situation of the health system
There are solutions for the survival of the system
1. Introduction of so-called “low-cost” drugs. The aim is to increase the number of doctors without increasing the effort and thus reducing their remuneration. The problem ? In medicine, excellence is paramount because the consequences for patient health are too serious to accept this model. When doctors no longer come from a path of excellence, the rigor will not be the same. Mistakes are becoming more common. But mistakes are expensive in medicine. The consequences will be dramatic for patients and their families.
2. Provide caregivers with technological tools to increase their productivity without compromising the quality of care or their working conditions. This is key so that all patients can be treated in a healthcare system that is sustainable for society. We need to counteract the phenomenon of hyper-specialized doctors leading to wasted nursing time. Nurses need to be able to increase their productivity to care for more patients without compromising the quality of care.
With an oncologist specializing in prostate and bladder cancer When a patient suffers from angina pectoris, the specialist needs technology that allows access to reliable and up-to-date information. This ensures high-quality care and access to the latest medical knowledge. Otherwise, the patient should be referred to their GP. Technology must enable caregivers to maintain broad expertise through real-time access to reliable, timely, and actionable information in their daily practice. If we want to stick with low-cost medicine and maintain excellence in care, there is a need to enable nurses to have a broader expertise.
Technology is becoming more and more integrated into the day-to-day life of caregivers, be it during consultations, during visits or in the operating theatre. It allows both the control of scientific information and the retrieval of patient information in real time. Technologies enable caregivers to care for more patients while maintaining the same quality of care. With these new technologies turning caregivers into advanced practitioners, we can envision a healthcare system that will be sustainable tomorrow.