Vademecum for Loi HPST

The ministry of health has developed a guide to the HPST Law and posted it via their web site.

This is not a short pamphlet, but a 162-page tome with a fair number of footnotes. It is, however, divided up into useful sections that explain some structures and relationships. Of more interest to me than many others is the section on "The relations between hospitals and primary care." Basically, they are asking for more coordination between the inpatient and ambulatory care sectors. "Multidisciplinary Medical Homes" (maisons de santé pluri-professionnelles (MSP)) are seen as one of the players in a coordinated system.

The Vademecum says: "The law entrusts the ARS with the responsibility for the organization and funding of the coordination and continuity of ambulatory care (permanence de soins), as part of a system (enveloppe fermé). To do this, each ARS will seek to develop payments to professionals to leverage their participation and to build specific mechanisms suited to the localities and conditions and to share medical resources at the interdepartmental or regional level, including with the hospital sector.