A new world in healthcare: professions tested by transformation

This interview is part of our "A new world" series, this time exploring the changes at work in healthcare practices, organizations and professions. Through the words of Stéphane Pardoux, Managing Director of ANAP, we try to understand how the demand for performance can become a driving force for transformation. Less inertia, more adaptability, limited resources but an unchanged ambition: to do as well, or even better, with less. 

Stéphane Pardoux's career path, atypical among hospital directors, reflects this desire for openness: management of rural and urban hospitals, management in the private sector (private hospital in Antony), and a spell at Gustave Roussy. A career that provides a panoramic vision of the French healthcare system. 

Towards a fair and assertive performance

The healthcare sector is not in crisis, it's changing. This strong conviction runs through the interview with Stéphane Pardoux, who observes a "scissor effect" between a demand for care that is increasing in breadth and length - due to aging, chronicization, and the explosion of societal expectations - and constrained resources, particularly in a system with socialized financing.

Faced with this tension, the response can only be systemic: "the right care" becomes the compass. Fairness in organization, investment and human resources. An ethical, ecological and social requirement, supported by ANAP through its missions: to produce lucid analyses, to support establishments and ARS in the field, and to promote a technical and service-oriented vision of public action.

New professions: between technology and humanity

With this in mind, we have published the panorama of emerging professions (ANAP, 2024), a forward-looking and inspirational document that lists 34 high value-added professions, based on international examples.

These include functions linked to data, ecological transition, pathway coordination and virtual reality. Some are highly technological, others profoundly human. This panorama, which can be downloaded from the ANAP website, is not a roadmap, but a support for opening chakras and questioning organizations.

What all these professions have in common is that they respond to a dual imperative: proximity to care, and prospects for development. "The reform of the Advanced Practice Nurse (APN), for example, creates concrete prospects for empowerment, clinical specialization and skills enhancement.

The HR function in (r)evolution

In this new grammar of care, the HR function takes on a strategic dimension. The last job in the panorama - recruitment consultant - symbolizes this shift. "Recruiting can no longer be as simple as publishing an advertisement. You have to go out and find talent, evaluate it and build loyalty. It's a job in its own right", argues ANAP's CEO.

As a recruitment agency, we're not going to say otherwise!

At a time when employment tensions are mounting, and the healthcare professions are competing with other sectors, the need to build attractive, mobile and stimulating career paths is becoming vital. "We need to give careers breathing space, detect the desire for change, and support internal reconversions."

A challenge made all the more crucial by the fact that commitment is no longer enough to compensate for the constraints of the job. Expertise, consideration and adaptation are required. "The hospital is a structure with a high human, technological and, soon, residential intensity. It is a place of innovation, but one that must also learn to transform its organizational models."

Hybrid managers for agile establishments

And where do facility managers fit into all this? Far from disappearing in the whirlwind of transition, their role is becoming increasingly complex. "Tomorrow's leader must combine mastery of technical processes with territorial vision. They must hold together the operational and the political, the internal and the external," sums up Stéphane Pardoux.

It's not a question of inventing a new profession, but of changing skills and attitudes: "The hospital can no longer be a citadel of care. It must become a coordination hub, a partner in the care process, a player rooted in the local community.

Conclusion: lucidity, technicality, adaptability

To young professionals, Stéphane Pardoux delivers a demanding but confident message: "Be lucid, technical, adaptable, and reject corporatism". 

The transformation is profound, but the potential of the French system remains powerful. "We care well in France. We have competent, committed professionals. It's up to us to invent the right tools to continue doing so, sustainably." 

To remember:

• ANAP is a key player in the transformation of healthcare organizations, based on analysis, support in the field, and a strong performance culture.
• The panorama of emerging professions (ANAP, 2024) is a tool for reflection and anticipation, available at www.anap.fr.