Created five years ago, the Accreditation Committee for healthcare data hosting services has today published a report on its operations. Apart from the exhaustive review of opinions issued, this first five-year account serves as a starting point for proposing changes in order to make procedures more straightforward and reference standards more relevant.  

Set up in February 2006, as a result of decree n° 2006-6 of 4 January 2006, the Accreditation Committee for personal healthcare data hosting services (Comité d’agrément des hébergeurs, CAH), was instructed by the health minister to issue an opinion on applications relating to healthcare hosting services made by manufacturers, with ASIP Santé handling directives and acting as the secretariat general.
The committee consists of representatives of healthcare professionals, health service users and IGAS, the inspectorate-general of social affairs, together with a group of experts in healthcare data safety, law and ethics. Appointed for a term of five years, members of the committee were replaced by decree on 14 June 2011 (French Official Journal [JORF] n° 0140 of 18 June 2011 page 10455 text n° 39)
At the time of this re-appointment, the Committee is today publishing its first report on its operations, restating its mission statement, its doctrine, and listing the opinions that it has issued. It also suggests a profile and potential changes relating to the accreditation of healthcare data hosting services.

The committee reaffirms the need to protect patients’ rights as far as their healthcare data is concerned, despite rapid technological progress in the sector, which makes the task of identifying manufacturers who are both competent and reliable even more complex. However, the committee has also declared itself in favour of simplifying the accreditation procedure so that it runs more smoothly and suggests possible lines of approach for a European accreditation system.