The Groupements Hospitaliers de Territoire (GHTs – Territorial Hospital Groups) created by the law on “modernisation of our healthcare system” constitute a major organisational innovation. On its own initiative, the High Council for Public Health has put forward thirteen operational recommendations to enhance the public health approach and to take into account the specific needs of the population in a given territory.
Its recommendations are based on three general principles:

• contributing to improvement of the local population’s state of health and meeting its healthcare needs;
• involving other territorial actors, private medical care, the private hospital sector, associations and local authorities;
• developing assessment of the population’s healthcare needs and actions implemented.

Recommendations are designed in line with operational logic (diagnosis, actions, management) and are intended for regional healthcare agencies (ARSs), establishments forming GHTs and bodies tasked with national management of GHTs. ARSs, for example, should encourage public hospitals in each GHTs to contribute to improvement of the population’s state of health in the areas they cover, by overseeing territorial health diagnoses, setting up a set of territorialised indicators for each territory, and encouraging creation of training programmes to accompany development of GHTs’ public health strand. GHTs should develop local cooperations for patients’ treatments with all partners (i.e. private hospitals and primary care practitioners) and take account of social inequalities in health. They should also develop public healthcare competences around local Medical Information Departments (DIMs) in connection with University Hospital Centres (CHUs).