On Thursday, April 3, 2025, our firm hosted a meeting of the Digital Health Club entitled “Virtual clinics: between innovation and legal framework?” organized by our partner Delphine Jaafar, who heads the firm’s Health team. Rémy Teston, host of the Digital Health Club, Gwen Le Calvez, co-founder of Annette, and Judith Mehl, Director of Institutional Affairs and External Relations at Docapost, contributed their valuable expertise.
Technology is redefining access to healthcare and transforming the relationship between patients and healthcare professionals. This is a rapidly growing phenomenon, illustrated by the rise of all kinds of platforms offering various services, from online appointment booking to instant medical consultations via chat. It is now possible for patients to obtain advice, preliminary diagnoses, or even prescriptions without leaving their homes.
The topic of virtual clinics covers several issues: can medicine be 100% digital? What does the concept of a virtual clinic really mean? What can and cannot be done? How can it be done?
There were particularly lively and exciting debates, with and thanks to the excellent orchestration of Rémy Teston, on the rise of all these types of platforms offering various services ranging from online appointment booking to instant medical consultations via chat, highlighting that it is now possible for patients to obtain advice, “preliminary” diagnoses, or even prescriptions without leaving their homes.
Gwen Le Calvez, co-founder of Annette, whom Delphine Jaafar had the pleasure of assisting in the implementation of her project, shared her experience of creating Annette and the necessary adaptations of a solution originally designed as a purely digital version of specialized obesity treatment centers.
The concepts of “ethics” and “trusted solutions” were discussed at length with Judith Mehl.
Our partner Delphine Jaafar was able to address some of the legal issues relating to 100% digital medicine, where the stakes are increasingly high. The presentation also included a legal focus on the framework applicable under French law for the development of online healthcare support systems.
The discussions were so rich that a second episode is widely desired by the speakers.
