Territorial professional health communities: A review based on the proximities approach

The objective of our research, which is essentially empirical, is to question the recent mechanism of the Professional and Territorial Health Communities, a mechanism that is a major challenge for improving the functioning of the health sector by seeking to improve the territorial coordination of its actors. Through semi-directive interviews with professionals in the sector, we propose a review of the system in terms of proximity. If it appears that the system – in its definition and usefulness – has been assimilated by professionals and that it creates a certain institutional proximity, the actors on the ground express their doubts as to its implementation and its concrete functioning. These questions reveal the lack of organisational and cognitive proximity between health actors, which the system does not allow to fill spontaneously. The animation of the network appears in this essential context, the relational proximity between professionals being able to fill the lack of other forms of proximity.
JEL Codes: H51, I18