H4D, leading French player in telemedicine, and the Ain department, inaugurated in December 2020 a Consult Station® H4D in Montreal-la-Cluse. This installation is part of a vast action plan around medical demography and against medical desertification led by the department. 4 other connected medical booths will be installed in the Ain territory by the end of the first quarter of 2021.
The purpose of setting up this connected medical booth is to facilitate access to healthcare for Aindinois and to provide an additional medical resource available immediately. Indeed, with 6.9 general practitioners per 10,000 inhabitants compared with 8.9 at national level, the medical demographic situation in the Ain is more than worrying, with the same problems of setting up professionals as those encountered in many French territories. In addition, there is also a phenomenon specific to the department with strong and continuous population growth, which accentuates the needs. Nearly 15% of the population of the Ain department has no GP and in certain sectors (Bourg-en-Bresse and Oyonnax basin), this figure exceeds 20%.
The communes of Béard-Géovreissiat, Brion, Montréal-la-Cluse, Nurieux-Volognat and Port have volunteered to welcome, install and take charge of the first Consult Station® purchased by the Ain Department, a true collegiality of the mayors of these communes to provide an immediate medical response to their inhabitants living in areas with a shortage of outpatient care.
The 4 other booths will be set up in the department where the supply of doctors is under pressure and where sometimes the area is classified as a Priority Intervention Zone by the ARS.
“Thanks to our connected medical booth, we will be able to provide a useful and concrete service to all the inhabitants of these numerous communes. Our aim is to provide local care for patients and to strengthen the local medical network. H4D’s strength is also to build a real medical project and the objective is to work with the health professionals in the area. Our system is becoming a true brick in the solution to the healthcare offer,” explains Doctor Franck Baudino, founder of H4D.
The consultation, which lasts 20 to 30 minutes, takes place under the same conditions as a visit to a conventional practice. The doctor receives the patient, listens to him and guides him to take the measures necessary for the diagnosis thanks to the variety of measuring instruments that equip the cabin (tensiometer, thermometer, oximeter, dermatoscope, otoscope, stethoscope, scale and measuring rod, electrocardiogram, audiogram, visual tests). He can thus establish a remote diagnosis and, if necessary, issue a prescription printed directly in the cabin.
The patient can also access the report of his consultation on his personal space. The patient’s health data is stored at a data host approved by the Ministry of Solidarity and Health.
H4D is a member of French Healthcare Association