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100 days to success. This is the podcast from G_NIUS, the Guichet national de l'innovation et des usages en e-santé, featuring Lionel Richard. Meet e-health innovators and key experts to help you succeed in your projects.

00:00:20
Lionel: Hello everyone! You're listening to 100 Days to Success, the podcast aimed at innovators and entrepreneurs in the digital health sector, as well as anyone curious about this field. This podcast is produced by G_NIUS, the French national e-health innovation and usage portal. For this episode devoted to Athons, hackathons, datathons or connectathons and other projectathons, I'm pleased to welcome two guests: Sébastien Letélié, organizer of Hacking Health Camp, a hackathon organized every year in Strasbourg since 2014, and Thierry Dart, the director of the medical affairs and labeling division of ANS, the Agence du numérique en santé, which is organizing the fourth edition of its projectathons in March 2022.

00:01:06
Lionel: Gentlemen, good morning!

00:01:07
Sébastien Letélié: Hello Lionel.

00:01:08
Thierry Dart: Hello Lionel.

00:01:09
Lionel: First of all, can you define for us what these Athons are? Sébastien Letélié : Hackathon, what is it?

00:01:15
Sébastien Letélié: So in the word Athons, there's first and foremost the meaning of the word marathon, meaning that it's a race within an allotted time. That's important, the time constraint is really important, and we add the word hack for hacker in front of it. Hacker is not what it sounds like, i.e. the hackers who are going to come and tamper with your computers. Hackers are first and foremost people who hijack the functionality of an application, a tool, an object, etc. to solve a problem. That's what we do in these hackathons. We try to solve problems based on problems posed. What makes us special is that we're involved in healthcare.

00:01:58
Thierry Dart: Always in Athon, it's always such a marathon session. Except that instead of actually testing software, we test interfaces and data exchange. In reality, a projectathon is a working session that enables participating publishers to test interoperability and data exchange in a national context, based on scenarios inspired by real-life situations. For example, for us, this typically involves sending a document to the DMP. Searching for documents in the DMP also involves searching for time slots, diaries and so on. So we're really working on interoperability tests, and we'll be testing interfaces. We're going to test the compliance of these interfaces with national and international IHE profiles.

00:02:50
Thierry Dart: This is a very, very strong link with IHE since behind it, IHE also tests these interoperability aspects in their Athons collection at international level.

00:03:00
Lionel: Can you just remind us what IHE is?

00:03:02
Thierry Dart: IHE is an association that defines profiles, i.e. how software interfaces should be written and programmed. Let's take just one example: IHE will define how to exchange biology reports, drug prescriptions and DM prescriptions, for example, using a standard (CDA, whatever).

00:03:31
Lionel: Messieurs, we understand that these Athons are made for innovators, for entrepreneurs, but also for publishers. So, why is it so important for these healthcare players to take part in a hackathon? And when should they do so? Sébastien.

00:03:49
Sébastien Letélié: So the particularity of our event is to mix healthcare professionals, patients too with digital professionals. I mix in developers, designers and entrepreneurs too, but who have an appetite for digital or know their stuff. This is fundamental, because, in fact, in these Athons, there's also a multidisciplinary dimension. In other words, when we bring people together who can each work with their different skills, they'll be able to do better with several brains and above all several different expertises.

00:04:23
Sébastien Letélié: That's fundamental and it's also what enables innovation. I often say it, but people come to us with problems, they present us with the problem and everything that's obvious to them, they think it's obvious to others, but that's not the case at all. You have to live and understand how they work, how they move, how they organize themselves, etc., to put digital at the heart of it all. Because when we talk about digital transformation, that's why we added the word transformation in front of it. It's because it's a real transformation, meaning that we don't work in the same way with a digital tool as we do with it.

00:04:58
Sébastien Letélié: It's fundamental to get all these players talking to each other, to think together about what the solution might be. And in fact, by discussing and working within a time constraint, they will better understand the problem. The person will better express the problem. They'll also become aware of different points of view and different ways of looking at the problem they're facing. They often have an initial idea, but it evolves, and that's what's great about these hackathons, which are in fact a kind of training, because you have to do it all the time.

00:05:27
Sébastien Letélié: But they're going to be able to start from a problem, a hypothesis, the beginnings of ideas and transform it little by little with everyone's input. Of course, digital is at the heart of all this. I'm often told, does it have to be all digital, hackathons and the like? No, we've had projects where the digital part was minimal. But it's true that we're going through a digital transformation today, and that's what drives us, and also brings a lot of innovation. So, it's not an obligation of digital, but in general it creates meaning and optimizes.

00:06:05
Sébastien Letélié: That's what we're looking for, because we're often faced with problems that are also linked to complex organizations. The fact that there are more of us, the fact that there are more demands. In the healthcare sector, we've been hearing a lot lately about the fact that all these flows mean that, at some point, we can't put 250,000 people on the payroll. We're not going to create doctors by snapping our fingers, so we need tools to help us. It's through these kinds of organizations and events that we're able to invent the future.

00:06:33
Lionel: As you said, Sébastien, it's a tool for transforming the healthcare system and transforming the way we deliver care, the way we manage the healthcare journey. Are participants also transformed when they take part in hackathon?

00:06:50
Sébastien Letélié: So, I'd say that's probably the most important part. In the early days, journalists would come up to me and say, "What's the startup that came out of the hackathon? Etc. I'd say to them: "You know, it's complicated to create a start-up in two days. Start-ups aren't created on Mondays". It's true that now, after nine editions, we have some Start-ups. There are 25 companies that have been created as a result of the hackathon, and some very good ones at that. But I told them Me, what marks me out the most is that at every event, I mean every event, I get at least one e-mail from a guy who tells me: "this event has changed my life, I'm changing jobs".

00:07:30
Sébastien Letélié: That's fundamental, because it means that we're attracting people who are looking for meaning, who say to themselves: "I want to solve problems, help people improve their daily lives", and so on. and in healthcare, that makes sense. And through these events, through these meetings - because it's also a great time for meetings, these marathons where we work together. Well, they say to themselves: "This is what I'm passionate about. I can see that I can make a contribution here. I can do my bit, help people to improve, whether it's healthcare professionals in their day-to-day work, or through healthcare staff, patients too". We can see that this quest for meaning is very much in demand, and in any case, we find it in the events we organize.

00:08:15
Thierry Dart: What do you find in a projectathon? You'll mainly find help and help with data exchange. Today, it's impossible to do healthcare without exchanging data. We're always talking about care paths and care coordination. We need to exchange data, and the projectathon will help publishers implement data exchange interfaces. This can be done by a start-up publisher, or behind an established one. It's help and support behind the scenes, from ANS on the implementation and validation of their data exchange interfaces.

00:09:07
Thierry Dart: How are we going to exchange a biology report? How will we exchange a prescription? How will we exchange diary availability slots? For example, in shared diaries. The projectathon enables software publishers to test the conformity of their interfaces in data exchange use cases. By taking part, publishers can say: "I've taken part, I'm compliant behind the scenes", for data exchange, organic reports and agenda exchange. But he'll also be looking for - and this is particularly important - help, because during these two or three days, all the ANS monitors - we're mobilizing around fifteen people - will be helping the editors behind the scenes, to implement these interfaces, and that's what comes out behind the feedback from the manufacturers.

00:10:06
Thierry Dart: There's this aspect of help and help not only from the SLA but also help between them. We see developers who are sometimes competitors in the field helping each other during projectathons and connectathons. This support is really very important and it's one of the means of development behind interoperability, and one of the last beneficiaries, I'd say, is us. Whether it's us at ANS or IHE, we're the ones who create the interoperability profiles and specifications. In this way, we really see the implementation, we see the difficulties, we see everything that can be improved to promote interoperability, everything that needs to be rewritten in the aspect. If it's not clear enough for editors.

00:10:50
Lionel: So, when I'm an editor, I come to the projectathon, test my interface, see if everything's going well or if there are things to correct, I fix it during the projectathons and leave with something that works. And with the support of the ANS experts. If I'm a Startuper, do I also come to the projectathon?

00:11:09
Thierry Dart: Yes, it's quite possible to come to the projectathon. I'd say for both start-ups and publishers, there are perhaps two moments. The first is to say, what is Interop? In my product, what data needs to be exchanged? That's really upstream. We invite all manufacturers to contact the people in charge of Interop, really upstream, so as to prepare all the data exchanges in their products. It's particularly important to be ready, and then, as soon as any developments are made on these exchanges, a projectathon must be carried out, to check that it's working properly, that the formats are correct, etc.

00:11:52
Thierry Dart: I'd say that beyond compliance, the important thing is that publishers also exchange data like this, as if they were in a real situation. For example, a publisher of laboratory management systems will produce a biology report with biology results, and send it to a publisher of software for healthcare professionals, just like what happens in the field in real life. And so not only will they also learn to work together and they'll check that their interfaces work well two by two each time.

00:12:26
Lionel: Thank you very much. Sébastien Letélié. This next Hacking Health Camp, to be held in Strasbourg at the end of March 2022, is the first, and we hope the first, post-Covid. You'll be returning to face-to-face meetings. It's being held against a very particular backdrop of accelerating digitalization in healthcare, with colossal investments over the last two years in terms of investments in the field. Do you expect anything different this year?

00:12:53
Sébastien Letélié: Different, I don't think, because we're really on a continuity, because we've been lucky enough to have, succeeded in remote mode, to keep the same number of participants, the same number of projects, the same quality and relevance of projects and prototypes made. This shows the enthusiasm and real need of healthcare professionals and patients to see innovation emerge, and to be involved in it on a daily basis through this event. But what everyone missed was the chance to meet people - and I'd like to emphasize this word, because one of the strong points of these events is the chance to meet people. Whether it's the projectathon or the hackathon, it's the meeting.

00:13:42
Sébastien Letélié: That is, we're going to go face-to-face with people. We're going to talk to them live. I'm not saying you can't do it remotely; but in a remote environment, you don't have the opportunity to bump into each other in a corridor, or in the cafeteria, to talk to someone because they're talking about another project, because you're not in the same place. That's something we all regretted during Covid, and now we're going to be able to do it again. It's fundamental, because it's one of the third points of contribution of this type of event. People often say to me: "I've picked up a lot of contacts and links, and now I know who to contact to continue my project, to go further"

00:14:31
Sébastien Letélié: Even if they don't continue with their projects, they also know who to turn to, who to contact for themselves, to see, how they're going to position themselves in their professional or personal lives.

00:14:43
Lionel: Thierry Darte, the projectathon, which you're organizing soon is also positioned in a particular context that of the Ségur du numérique, the acceleration of the digital health strategy at national, French, but also European level, as part of France's European presidency. What are the major issues for you, this projectathon?

00:15:01
Thierry Dart: The big issues with this projectathon are really maintaining the continuity of what we're doing. I'd say that projectathons are fairly recent, dating back to 2009 for ANS. It's something we feel very strongly about. In Sébastien's words, this aspect of encounters is super important. They've all told us, it's great. We're all together as developers in a non-competitive environment. We eat together, we work together and we develop interfaces and make our data exchanges more reliable together. We leave with interfaces that are qualified and validated.

00:15:39
Thierry Dart: This team-building aspect is very, very important, and that's also why we really want to, even beyond the Segur. There will be one a year, systematically, to improve all health data exchanges. Because today, we can't do healthcare without exchanges. You can't have healthcare without collaboration, and so you can't have healthcare without interoperability.

00:16:13
Lionel: Our episode is coming to an end. Thank you for listening. We'd also like to thank our guests for their availability. Don't hesitate to subscribe to the podcast on your listening platforms. We look forward to seeing you soon for a new episode of 100 Days to Success.

00:16:30
Those who are making e-health today and tomorrow are on the G_NIUS podcast. And all the solutions for success are on gnius.esante.gouv.fr.