What is the SAS, healthcare access service, presented to the Minister of Health at the Dijon University Hospital?
A large room separated into small islands, computers, and above all operators, around fifteen women and men on the lookout: welcome to the SAS control room, the Care Access Service, created on June 14, 2021 at Dijon University Hospital.
A patient triage station
Here, we receive all calls on the 15th: more than a thousand a day, more than 400,000 in 2021: “this room is a bit like the new version SAMU”, summarizes Doctor Philippe Dreyfus, one of the doctors at the origin of this structure. A SAMU where we filter the calls much more: “Some patients do not know how to mobilize the emergency technical platform, so these patients, we will try to prevent them from entering the emergency room.”
The doctor relies on an observation: most of the calls to 15 do not activate emergency medicine, on the contrary, it is the minority. According to him, two thirds of the calls rather than liberal medicine. And it is precisely towards the liberal doctors that the ARM (assistants of medical regulation), and the regulating doctors will seek to send to all these “non-emergency” patients.
“We will first seek a solution from the attending physician to find a niche, and if not, then we try to find solutions with other doctors, in particular those who have declared themselves on the SAS platform.”
Real efficiency?
Doctor Dreyfus himself recognizes alongside the Minister of Health, it is still too early to comment on the real effectiveness of the device. But the first steps are encouraged: faster handling of calls, stagnation in emergency visits in the second half of 2021, and a big increase in activity among liberals: + 52.4%. The challenge is to be able to continue to make this link between public hospital and liberal medicine. Then, it’s an HR problem, like everywhere in the healthcare system. “It’s not a secret, it’s delicate”, admits Philippe Dreyfus. Who is therefore expecting a lot from the emergency measures promised by Minister François Braun when he left Dijon.