“The Alliance SIH was created to unite key players around a common vision: to design and implement a next-generation hospital information system based on open, sovereign, and data-centric principles,” said Dominique Pon.
As France sets out on a mission of transforming its healthcare system, we sat down with Dominique Pon, Managing Director of La Poste Santé & Autonomie, for an interview in our Mission magazine. He shared with us their vision, explained the reasons for the shift in France’s mindset, and also mentioned their collaboration with Better.
France is undergoing an important shift from application-centric hospital systems to data-centric ones. From your perspective, what was the motivation behind this move, and why is now the right time for France to embrace openEHR and open standards?
The motivation for this shift lies in the urgent need to overcome the fragmentation and the lack of interoperability in our current hospital information systems (SIH). For too long, French hospitals have relied on hundreds of proprietary applications that struggle to communicate effectively and that limit innovation and flexibility. Now is the right time because we are at the crossroads of technological advances, particularly with the rise of artificial intelligence, which demands structured, high-quality, and accessible data. Embracing openEHR and open standards like FHIR and OMOP is crucial to building agile, sovereign, and sustainable data-centric architectures that enhance patient care, clinical collaboration, and sovereignty over our health data. The experience of pioneering countries shows the concrete benefits of this transition, and France must act collectively to avoid falling behind internationally.
The Alliance SIH unites major players, La Poste Santé & Autonomie, CPAGE, Maincare, and HCL around a shared vision. Could you explain the strategic goals of this alliance and how it plans to shape the future of hospital information systems in France?
The Alliance SIH was created with the strategic intent to unite key players around a common vision: to design and implement a next-generation hospital information system based on open, sovereign, and data-centric principles. Its goals are to restore control over health data to healthcare organisations, foster interoperability, and accelerate innovation through collective efforts. The Alliance aims to break down technological silos and develop a coherent ecosystem where data can freely circulate under rigorous governance, improving care coordination, reducing costs, and reinforcing our national digital sovereignty. By pooling expertise, sharing resources, and leveraging international open standards, the Alliance is committed to building a robust, scalable, and agile platform that will transform healthcare delivery in France.
One of the pillars of the Alliance SIH’s approach is a migration towards open and data-centric architectures using openEHR, FHIR, and OMOP. What are the main challenges in this transformation, and how do you plan to overcome them?
The transformation towards open and data-centric architectures faces multiple challenges, including the complexity of migrating from legacy, proprietary systems; ensuring data quality and semantic consistency across institutions; and addressing cultural and organisational resistance to change. Moreover, the fragmentation and the sheer number of applications currently deployed complicate integration efforts. To overcome these, the Alliance advocates for a progressive migration strategy, starting with establishing a shared data repository based on openEHR and integrating FHIR and OMOP standards to cover interoperability and research needs respectively. Collaboration among all stakeholders—public authorities, clinicians, IT vendors, and hospitals—is essential for success.
In the white paper you published not long ago, openEHR is described as the foundation for a new generation of hospital systems, promoting data persistence and clinical collaboration. Why was openEHR chosen, and what unique advantages does it offer compared to traditional EHR models?
openEHR was chosen because it fundamentally redefines how clinical data is stored and managed—it treats data as a persistent, interoperable, and semantically rich asset, independent from any application. This separation of data and application layers enables long-term data preservation, more effective reuse, and easier integration of new technologies such as AI. Unlike traditional EHRs, which often lock data within proprietary systems and impede data sharing, openEHR offers an open, community-driven standard that allows healthcare providers to retain ownership of their data and adapt systems flexibly over time. Its collaborative development approach involving clinicians and data architects ensures semantic precision and clinical relevance, which directly supports better clinical decision-making and research.
Better is mentioned as a technology partner in this journey. Could you share more about your collaboration with Better, how the company and its experience are helping the initiative, and what you envision for this partnership going forward?
Better’s experience has been foundational for our progress. From the very start, the teams at Better have helped us see much more clearly the core concepts behind data-centric approaches and the forces shaping this field. Their strategic input and expertise have guided our reflections, facilitated our understanding, and supported our maturation as a collective. Better stands as a key actor in our ongoing collaboration, constantly providing insight and clarity that enable us to translate ambition into effective action. This ongoing exchange will remain essential as we continue to scale up data-centric innovation across French hospitals.
Looking ahead, what are the next major steps for the Alliance SIH and the French healthcare system in this digital transformation?
Looking ahead, our major focus over the coming months will be to refine and formalise our strategy for adopting a data-centric model, particularly centred around openEHR. The core decision at this stage is whether to adopt a comprehensive Digital Health Platform or to focus specifically on deploying a Clinical Data Repository (CDR); currently, the CDR-driven approach appears to be the priority. Early in 2026, we aim to publish a concrete, technical and functional roadmap that will detail the first real-world implementations to be delivered by the Alliance. In parallel, we are preparing to welcome other vendors and solution providers who have expressed interest in joining the Alliance—demonstrating both its growing success and its ability to federate actors. At the same time, we would like to work closely with the French government to advocate for making this data-centric approach a national doctrine, thus ensuring sustainability and coherence across the entire healthcare system.
