How does your local French hospital fare in official quality rankings?
The certification authority considered factors including coordination of care, risk prevention and pain management
Each hospital's result is detailed on its website, with the date of certification, details of quality indicators and results
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The latest safety and quality rankings of all hospitals in France have been published by QualiScope, the health authority’s online service to help people find their best local hospital or clinic.
The Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) has been evaluating quality and safety levels of hospitals and healthcare establishments in France, both private and public, for the past 20 years.
The QualiScope tool is designed for both patients and healthcare professionals, and assesses aspects such as coordination of care, risk prevention, and pain management, etc.
It has also recently included the results of the national ‘e-Satis’ survey, conducted directly with patients in hospital.
Quality of care ratings
The most recent results cover 50% of hospitals, with 1,158 hospitals having been visited.
It showed:
- 21% certified to offer a high quality of care
- 63% certified to offer a good or acceptable quality of care
- 13% certified as passed, but under conditions, and must demonstrate “rapid improvement”
- 3% not certified, due to "insufficient quality of care"
Anne Chevrier, director of certification at the HAS, warned that while 3% is still proportionally low, the number “has never been so high”.
Establishments that fail to pass certification may be struggling to coordinate treatment, prevent healthcare-associated infections, or to manage patient pain adequately.
Having an A&E (emergency department) and a psychiatric department can, in some cases, partly explain an establishment’s low score, "because of the many organisational problems and dilapidation in these departments", said Ms Chevrier.
How can I find the rating of my local French hospitals and healthcare centres?
Each hospital's result is detailed on its website, with the date of certification, details of quality indicators and results, and recommendations for any action plan to be implemented between now and the next visit.
You can also search and compare results of hospitals and healthcare clinics via the QualiScope tool here. You can search by name, location, and healthcare speciality, but remember that your local hospital mught not have been visited.
For example, in the Dordogne, both the main hospitals in Bergerac and Périgueux were certified to have a good quality of care, however the Saint-Andre and Xavier-Martin hospitals in Bordeaux passed but under condition.
The hospital in Brive-la-Gaillarde also only passed under condition. Many of the centres that passed with a high quality of care were private hospitals or clinics, with larger hospitals receiving lower scores in general.
Some hospital sites in mainland France did not obtain certification this time, and must implement actions to improve, with a view to a new certification visit within 12 to 24 months.
These were:
- Unité d’autodialyse Georges Laure (Draveil)
- Clinique de Montargis (Montargis)
- Centre Médical de la Vénerie (Champlemy)
- Centre hospitalier (Is-sur-Tille)
- Centre hospitalier; Clinique de la Compassion; GCS Pôle de Santé du Sud Haut-Marnais (Langres)
- Centre hospitalier; Centre médico-chirurgical; GCS Pôle de Santé du Sud Haut-Marnais (Chaumont)
- Unité de soins de longue durée (Riaucourt)
- Centre hospitalier; Unité de soins de longue durée (Bourbonne-les-Bains)
- Clinique de l’Iroise (Bohars)
- Santé service Limousin (Limoges)
- Centre hospitalier Intercommunal (Ribérac)
- Centre hospitalier Chenard (Saint Aulaye-Puymangou)
- Clinique Anouste (Bordeaux)
- Clinique d'Ursuya (Cambo-les-Bains)
- Centre SSR Jalavoux (Aiguilhe)
- Clinique médicale La Boussonniere (La Talaudiere)
- CHI Cavaillon Lauris SLD et MCO (Cavaillon)
- Centre de Pneumologie et de Rééducation Polyvalente de Roquefraîche (Lauris)
- HAD Relai Santé (Brive-la-Gaillarde)
Patient satisfaction on rise
The HAS also released statistics over the perceived quality of care and satisfaction rate in French hospitals.
Overall patient satisfaction has risen steadily in the last few years, with the number of satisfied patients increasing from 72.9/100 to 74.3/100 (for short-stays).
For outpatients, this increases to 78.9/100, up 1 whole point than in 2022.
Pain assessment and management units received one of the highest national satisfaction rates, with most of these departments receiving positive feedback by between 84% and 89% of patients.
In comparison, for psychiatric hospitals only 63% of patients provided positive feedback, although this was an improvement on 2022's rankings.
In terms of quality of care itself, 85% of hospitals visited by HAS experts received an acceptable quality of care level, with 22% nationally receiving a 'very good' level.
It must be noted, however, that not all hospitals have so far been certified with the new assessment criteria bought in by the HAS in 2021. By 2025 all hospitals should have been assessed, and will be assessed every four years after this.
In general, more hospitals in the Paca (Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur), Centre-Val de Loire and Réunion regions have been assessed. On the other hand, more than 30% of hospitals in the Pays-de-la-Loire have not yet been ceritfied.
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