Juliette Lemaignen appointed Director of the Ambulatory Surgery Centre (CCA)
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Juliette Lemaignen will take over as director of the Centre for Ambulatory Surgery (CCA) on 1 September 2024. Created jointly by Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) and Hirslanden, it will be operational by the end of 2025. It will be the largest ambulatory surgery centre in Switzerland.
Since 2015, Juliette Lemaignen, 45, has been a partner in the Inartis Foundation, a not-for-profit foundation whose main aim is to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in all areas of technology, particularly in the life sciences. In particular, she manages the Station R and UniverCité incubators and develops projects at the interface between academic research and industry. This role has led her to work with the HUG on a paediatric digital health data project in the field of liver transplantation.
Prior to this, she worked as a journalist from 2004, and from 2009 she was editor-in-chief of the weekly ‘Biotech Finances’, a publication specialising in financial and economic information for the European biopharmaceutical industry.
Unwavering support for innovation
As part of its support for innovation, it helped set up and finance Invivox, a training platform for healthcare professionals, particularly surgeons. She was a member of the company’s board of directors. She has also worked as a consultant, helping the sales forces of pharmaceutical companies to understand the critical analysis of clinical trials and integrate it into their day-to-day practice of promoting drugs to the medical profession.
Juliette Lemaignen holds an engineering degree in computer science and mathematics from the Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas – IMAC, as well as a journalism diploma from the Institut Français de Journalisme (IPJ). She also holds an Executive Advanced Master in Strategy and Management of Health Industry from ESSEC Business School.
A unanimous decision
The CCA’s Board of Governors, made up of representatives from both institutions, unanimously decided to appoint Juliette Lemaignen as Director of the CCA. From 1 September, she will be responsible for the centre, which is due to open at the end of 2025. Stéphan Studer, Chairman of the CCA’s Board of Governors, said: “I am delighted that the management of the CCA has been entrusted to someone with a strong entrepreneurial and innovative spirit. I am convinced that the centre will make a significant contribution to the move towards outpatient surgery and will strengthen integrated care for the people of Geneva.”.
An outpatient surgery centre unique in Switzerland
The result of a public-private partnership, this centre will be the largest of its kind in Switzerland. Covering an area of 4’000 m2, it will have ten operating rooms. Its initial capacity is estimated at around 9’000 operations per year. It will be gradually increased in line with needs, and should reach 16’000 operations a year by 2040.
Helping to reduce healthcare costs
The transfer of hospital operations to outpatient care is one of the national priorities of the healthcare sector for the coming years.
Through the ‘Outpatient before Inpatient’ programme, at the beginning of 2023 the Confederation introduced a list containing 18 groups of operations that must be performed on an outpatient basis (unless special circumstances require hospitalisation) throughout Switzerland.
Shortening hospital turnaround times to 12 hours, while guaranteeing the safety of care and medical follow-up, will help to reduce the costs of the healthcare system, which is currently a major issue. It will also mean faster care for patients and greater comfort, with patients able to go home the same day.
Ambulatory surgery offers the opportunity to improve the quality of certain specific types of care by developing dedicated innovative practices, which is what the Ambulatory Surgery Centre will focus on from the outset.
Source: press release