Making the installation of private practitioners easier
Analyzing medical demography depending on territories
Making it easier for local players to understand the data
The Regional Union for Private Practitioners Health Professionals in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (URPS AuRA) is one of the six mandatory structures for representing health professionals in the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region. It is the biggest URPS in the region in terms of financial volume and representativity. It is elected every five years.
The organization contributes to organizing regional health services ; its objective is to promote private practice in the region.
After following a training course to become a hospital director, Céline Vigné became the director of the URPS AuRA in August 2017. She manages a team of about ten members organized into several departments: the Administration department, the Studies and Statistics department, policy officers… She supervizes the deployment of tools for private health practitioners and the support of projects in relation with local representatives.
“Having a tool which translates data is essential.”
Liliane Larrieu joined the Regional Union for Private Practitioners (URML) of Auvergne, which became the URPS AuRA in 2016, and is in charge of the Studies and Statistics department. She is the main user of C&D within the organization.
“I used to use MapInfo at the URML Auvergne; when we became the URPS AuRA, it was decided to switch to C&D, which was already being used in Rhône Alpes. I went on a short training course to learn how to handle the software. It is easy to use once the data table is prepared properly. The interface is user-friendly.”
“Every 5 years, each regional URPS defines main strategic directions; for the URPS AuRA, these are the study of medical demography and the deployment of the Professional Health Territorial Communities (CPTS) in order to properly meet specific local needs. Consequently, it concentrates on promoting private practice in relation with universities.
The URPS AuRA also concentrates on developing electronic health tools (coordination tools, electronic vaccination records, social networks for health professionals…).”
The URPS AuRA’s interest in cartography stemmed from its need for a detailed study of the evolution of the medical demography in the region.
French Unions for Private Practitioners Health Professionals now have at their disposal the databases of private practitioners, which are updated yearly. These databases give details about their location, their specialty, their age range… All this data makes it possible to study how territories evolve on a local scale.
“Maps allow us to make territorial diagnostics by making the large volume of data we own intelligible: the evolution of the number of inhabitants in a municipality, of the number of doctors, of their average age… Reading a note with detailed figures, or a report, is very interesting, but it is not very striking. A map gives a visual translation of the data and makes it immediately intelligible for people in the field, who will be able to oversee regional and territorial initiatives.
With maps, one can analyze a situation and carry out prospective studies in order to support the projects of Professional Health Territorial Communities and the creation of local multi-disciplinary health care institutions to meet local needs.”
The organization mainly makes maps of the medical demography of territories, such as maps of the density of general practitioners, of the average age of general practitioners per municipality, or maps representing sensitive areas for medical demography, or the demographic risk of each area…
A map of local elected representatives also helps find the right persons to address in order to support the organization’s projects.
Finally, flow maps make it possible to visualize where patients consulting private practitioners come from, so as to improve the knowledge of territories.
“Our maps are designed to help local players and allow young doctors to spot where they should start their practice: they can see where their colleagues are located and where patients concentrate. These maps are a decision-making tool for individuals when they have to decide where to settle. By accessing the interactive atlas, users can view figures by hovering the mouse over municipalities. All the necessary information is available in popup cards or tooltips, with a large variety of representations available (charts, tables…), so that local players can easily access it in the interface.”
While the organizations started out using C&D to make static maps, it moved on to dynamic maps with interactive atlases. The fact that you can share your creations easily through a simple URL with people who are not users of the software, and the possibility of displaying the atlas for the general public on a web page are concrete advantages.
“The software includes a lot of features which allow us to create a large variety of maps. We especially appreciate the fact that we can create dynamic atlases: users both have a global vision of their territories, and can zoom in on the local scale. All the information they need is readily available in tooltips.
The interface is user-friendly, easy to use, and the maps are immediately ready to be published, which is a major advantage!”
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