Identifying innovations produced by primary health care centers and evaluating their scalability: the SPRINT Occitanie cross-sectional study in France

Background: Practice-based research is one of the levers identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) to strengthen primary health care. The scaling of health and social care innovations has thepotential to reduce inequities in health and to expand the benefits of effective innovations. It is now rapidly gaining the attention of decision-makers in health and social care, particularly in high-income countries. To meet the challenge of declining numbers of primary care physicians in France, Pluri-professional Healthcare Centers (PHC) were created to bring together medical and paramedical professionals. They are a source of innovation in meeting the health challenges facing our populations. Specific methodology exists to identify health innovations and assess their scalability. A working group, including end-users and specialists, has adapted this methodology to the French context and the University department of general practice of Montpellier-Nîmes (France) launched a pilot study in Occitanie, a French region. Objective: To identify and evaluate the scalability of innovations produced in pluri-professional healthcare centers in the Occitanie region. Methods: A pilot, observational, cross-sectional study was carried out. The SPRINT Occitanie study was based on a questionnaire with two sections: PHC information and the modified Innovation Scalability Self-Administered Questionnaire (ISSaQ), version 2020. The study population was all 279 PHC in the Occitanie region. Results: 19.3% (54) of PHC in the Occitanie region, responded fully or incompletely to the questionnaire. Four out of 5 U-PHCs were represented. Five PHC presented multiple innovations. The average per PHC was 1.94 (±2.4) innovations. 26% of them (n=9) had high scalability, 34% (n=12) medium scalability and 40% (n=14) low scalability. The main innovation represented (86%) were healthcare program, service, and tool. Conclusions: In our cross-sectional study, a quarter of the innovations were highly scalable. We were able to demonstrate the importance of PHC teams in working on primary care research through the prism of innovations. Primary-care innovations must be detected, evaluated, and extracted to improve their impact on their healthcare system.