Vivalto Santé has embarked on a major expansion in Europe

Vivalto Santé is embarking on a strong development in Europe based on its unique model of shared governance with doctors and a status of company with a mission that guides its major projects.

Vivalto Santé is embarking on strong development in Europe:

• Vivalto Santé, the third largest private hospitalization group in France, is taking on a European dimension by establishing itself in 5 countries (Switzerland, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia and the Czech Republic), thus doubling the size of its activity
• As the leading company with a mission in the health sector, the group is strengthening its mode of governance and shareholding shared with doctors and implementing actions to meet the expectations of employees and patients in a particularly difficult period for the health sector

“Since its inception, Vivalto Santé has had an original and unique organization based on co-governance with practitioners, allowing us to share all the dimensions necessary for relevant decision-making in our hospitals and clinics. Within our Supervisory Board, the Group’s highest level of governance, 5 out of 11 members are practitioners. Elected by their peers, they have a right of veto on important decisions. This is what I called ‘the 3rd way’. It is also illustrated in the shareholding, with 1 practitioner out of 3 and 1 employee out of 3 shareholders. This specificity, on which our identity, different from other private actors in hospitalization, has been built, is today part of our corporate commitments with a mission. This demanding status that we adopted in 2021 commits us, without any possible backtracking, to the path of listening and collaborating with our stakeholders, in the service of our sole mission at the service of all: caring for and supporting patients throughout throughout their care journey and their lives.” Daniel Caille, Founding President of Vivalto Santé

A model that appeals internationally

“With the ‘Third Way’ and our status as a company with a mission, we have a different and attractive model that arouses the interest of French hospital players, but also foreign ones. This is why our development continues, with in particular the mergers that took place in 2022 in Switzerland, Portugal*, Spain, Czechia and Slovakia. These groups also have practices and innovations in line with our strategic areas of transformation, particularly in terms of patient experience and health prevention. Faced with the technological, social and societal challenges that impact our profession in the same way in most Western countries, we will be stronger together and better able to develop new solutions to meet patient expectations.” Emmanuel De Geuser, Managing Director of Vivalto Health

Vivalto Santé begins strong development in Europe

Founded in 2009 with the acquisition of 3 Breton establishments, the Vivalto Santé group now has 50 hospitals and clinics in France and is extending its development to Europe:

• in French-speaking Switzerland, via the CIC Group (3 clinics) born from the desire of a doctor to offer quality care for all patients, regardless of their insurance coverage;
• in Portugal, via the Lusíadas group, the 3rd Portuguese hospital player (11 clinics) which aims to reconcile medical excellence and quality of the patient experience. It has state-of-the-art technological equipment and enjoys a very positive reputation among patients;
• in Spain, via the Ribera Salud group, the 3rd Spanish hospital player with 10 private establishments. Ribera Salud has notably developed the “Alzira” model of public-private collaboration (1 establishment in Madrid and 2 in Valencia) centered on a long-term approach to patient health thanks to complete control of the care pathway, including care primaries with a capitation system;
• in Central Europe via Pro Diagnostic Group, a subsidiary of Ribera Salud which offers imaging services in Slovakia and a bariatric activity in the Czech Republic.

With these acquisitions, the Vivalto Santé group now has 91 healthcare establishments in Europe, for a turnover of €2.2 billion, which is split 50/50 between France and international markets.

Beyond a simple implementation strategy, Vivalto Santé aims to share everyone’s best practices (organization, processes, digital tools and information systems, etc.) and ultimately to develop joint projects when the local regulations allow it. The group thus aims to create a transnational medical community to develop, among other things, medical research projects on the scale of several countries.

Reinforced medical governance

The 3rd way will be one of the first subjects of sharing within the new establishments of the Group. Co-governance that continues to be strengthened, including in France, with the creation in 2022 of a Strategic Medical Committee, which completes at group level the system of Medical Management Committees in each establishment and Regional Medical Committees at the Group level. regional scale. This new body guides the Group’s thinking and decisions in the medical field and supports healthcare professionals in the supply and organization of care in the regions by formalizing regional medical projects.

“Our acquisition dynamic and the continuous expansion of the specialties offered by our establishments serve our commitment to global, coordinated and personalized care of patients at the regional level. In line with this ambition, the Vivalto Santé Group changed its organization at the beginning of 2021 with the creation of Territories, each grouping together a certain number of establishments whose geographical proximity favors the pooling of resources and expertise. This network organization makes it possible to offer quality care and care pathways to the populations of these territories. This is the whole point of the definition and implementation of Territorial Medical Projects (PMT).” Dr. Philippe Souchois, Medical Director of Vivalto Santé

Territorial Medical Projects at the service of easier access to care

Co-constructed with doctors, most Territories have formalized their PMT (Hauts de France and Switzerland in progress) and are progressing with their implementation. Comparable to “private GHTs”, they strive to promote synergies and complementarities between establishments, to promote multidisciplinary teamwork, to mesh the territories with advanced consultations as close as possible to the inhabitants, but also to pool technical platforms or securing authorizations or requesting new ones from the supervisory authorities.

For example, in Brittany, 6 urological surgeons practicing at the Rennais Saint-Grégoire private hospital (35) come to practice one day a week at the Baie private hospital in Avranches (50), in consultation as in the operating room, thus strengthening the supply of care in the area. In addition, in order to strengthen the territorial network of the care offer, the practitioners of the Breton establishments come out of the walls of the hospitals and offer advanced consultations on 12 sites several days a week.

At the same time, Vivalto Santé organizes the gradation of care between the establishments in each territory. The aim is to specialize the sites in order, on the one hand, to strengthen expertise and improve the quality of care, and on the other hand to pool the technical platforms of the establishments in order to offer coordinated care pathways between the clinics and the Hospitals according to patient needs. To strengthen this dynamic, certain establishments are grouped together, like the Montgardé Hospital Center and the Cardiological Center of Evecquemont in the Yvelines which, by 2024, will be united on a single site in Aubergenville.

Finally, regional medical projects draw on good practices developed at the establishment level. For example, the Hôpital Privé du Confluent in Nantes being recognized as a center of expertise in the field of algology (pain treatment), the Group intends to disseminate its good practices to all the other Territories. This project, called “Vivalgo”, will be initiated by the end of the year in Normandy and during 2023 in all the Group’s Territories.

Putting people (patients and employees) back at the center of concerns

Since its creation, and through its DNA as a company with a mission, Vivalto Santé has placed people at the heart of its concerns. Today, the Group is part of a process of continuous improvement of the patient experience.

For many years, Vivalto Santé has been producing analysis reports based on e-Satis patient satisfaction surveys (national system that came into force in 2016) for each establishment. This analysis, initially quantitative, was reinforced in 2020 by a section qualitative, based on the processing of patient verbatim statements (also available in e-Satis surveys but difficult to use) in partnership with the specialized company Better World, which uses artificial intelligence technologies.

The findings of these reports are provided several times a year to the Group’s hospitals and clinics with the aim of continuously improving their organizations and practices.

The Group is now aiming to take a new step with the creation of a Vivalto Santé patient experience model. An experiment has just been launched in 7 Group establishments (one establishment per territory). This co-construction approach consists of bringing together patients, practitioners, employees and caregivers during collaborative meetings in order to determine the key points of a “good” patient experience, thus making it possible to define a model. The latter will serve as a common base for all the Group’s establishments and will be enriched over time and as the establishments increase in power on all the criteria of the model.

“Beyond the continuous improvement of the Quality and Safety of Care, Vivalto Santé has been working for many years to improve the satisfaction of its patients and those accompanying them. We now want to take a step forward by creating a Vivalto Santé patient experience model, in collaboration with patients, employees (caregivers and non-caregivers) and practitioners, which will serve as a base in all of our establishments. This is a project that is all the more important to us since scientific studies prove that a positive patient experience has an impact on health and that it will undoubtedly be very unifying for our teams, who find in it the primary meaning of their involvement in the health sector.” Caroline Desaegher, Director of Communication and Patient Experience at Vivalto Santé

In line with this approach, Vivalto Santé therefore places the commitment of its employees at the heart of its priorities.

In a context of labor shortages and deteriorating purchasing power of employees, the Group was the first healthcare player to announce in September the implementation of the value-sharing bonus (PPV, formerly Macron bonus). 400 euros will thus be paid to employees before Christmas.

In addition, the Group remains faithful to its principle of value sharing: 34% of its employees are thus shareholders of the company to date, i.e. 1 out of 3.

In April 2022, Vivalto Santé launched a research with its employees called “Open Expression”. 42.5% of employees responded. Since September, each Group establishment has been working collaboratively with its employees on an action plan to be implemented in order to best meet the needs reported by employees.

“The commitment of our employees is our strength. We must preserve it and attract new talent. In the difficult context that the health sector is undergoing, the attractiveness and loyalty of our employees are our priority concerns. Of course, this leads us to work on the subject of salaries and purchasing power, but above all that of the quality of life and working conditions. This is also the challenge of one of our company commitments to mission. After the implementation in 2022 of a system for listening to our employees, we are in the process of implementing a vast program to improve the quality of life and working conditions, the actions of which are developed in collaborative mode. in each establishment, in order to be as close as possible to the expectations of employees and work contexts.“