French military hospitals: external operations’ impact on the organisation

Abstract

Military activities such as External Operations may explain the important financial deficit highlighted by Cour des Comptes’s audit of the French military hospitals. This paper offers an analysis of the impact of external operations on operating rooms and thus on revenues from surgical activity.
The methodology of the study is both qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative analysis is based on 27 interviews of military healthcare professionals while a simulation of surgery production in two military hospitals offers a quantitative approach to evaluate the impact of external operations on surgical activity.
The outcomes of the interviews and the comparison of the simulation of surgical care provision with and without external operations, show that external operations have a negative but highly variable impact on hospital productivity.
The study highlights that some organisational strategies improve hospital resilience during external operations.
Outside of the scope of the French Military Health Care Service, the present article provides insights into hospital resilience and financing systems for extra-care activities in hospitals such as teaching, research and public interest missions