The cost is determined by the certifying body which grants the certificate.

The daily cost to conduct the audits is at their discretion. The industrial is free to choose which certifying body they want to work with to become certified.

For further information on this topic, we suggest you contact the certifying bodies that have signed a convention agreement with the ANS, listed below:

To register on the Convergence platform, you need to download the account request form to open an account as a company representative. 
Before completing this form, please check that your company is not already represented by another person who is able to create an account for you to access the Platform. If you have any questions, please contact support at ans-support-convergence@esante.gouv.fr. 
As soon as you receive the e-mail confirming the creation of your account, you will be able to initialize your password and access the Platform after accepting the General Terms of Use.

You may divide your service into as many products as you wish to register on the platform. The appropriate segmentation must correspond to your activity and the roadmaps/processes available on the platform.  

It is important to include all the different versions associated with support or devices as different products, as they could impact the maturity level assessment of your solution.  

In order to make the identification of products easier, each edition and version of the commercialised products needs to be registered. We suggest you use this format to name your product - (Name of the Product) (OS) (Device) - with the following terms: 

• device can be named “Mobile” or “Website” 
• OS can be named “iOS”, “Android”, “Windows”, “Linux” or any other operating system. 

In addition, for registration into Mon Espace Santé (My Health Space): you must add as a product the solution that will be visible to the citizen/user in the service catalogue. The commercial name must be the same as the name visible by the citizen. 

Yes, you need to have the ISO 9001 or the ISO 13485 certification to be eligible. You may begin the QHN certification process while you are in the course of making an application for/or renewing these ISO 9001 or the ISO 13485 certifications.

Yes, as long as the industrial remains responsible for the compliance of these processes with the requirements set out to obtain the QHN certification – regardless of hired external contractors or if some of the components are published or made by third-party companies.

Indeed, in the whole production system’s organisation, the industrial is the direct contact with a health professional or structure, and must make sure each requirement set out in the “Référentiel Qualité Hôpital Numérique” (QHN Referential, available in our Documentation section) is met.

There are several levels of requirements for a module’s integration into the Hospital Information System. 

The main requirements set out by the referential are: 

• Interfacing, control, security guidelines; 
• Prescription process requirements; 
• National prescription thesaurus integration requirements; 
• Requirements regarding medico-economic and decision processes; 
• Guidelines for ergonomics, functions, and notification alerts; 
• Settings function requirements. 

In total, 139 requirements are used to reach the minimal level of security needed for a solution’s integration into the hospital information system.

The current referential (2017) was written with industry experts. It introduces the particular context of this mission and the goals to reach in order to improve safety measures in neonatology and paediatric reanimation. The referential walks you through the fundamental concepts you need to grasp to understand the several requirements and protocols involved with software development for this sector.

Neonatology is a high-risk practice for two main reasons:

• The patients are extremely fragile (premature babies) 
• 50% of the drugs used in the sector have yet to receive a marketing authorisation.

A survey conducted in 2014 evidenced a risk in the prescription process across the sector. The digitalisation of prescription is among the 41 recommendations that the report issued in order to increase safety levels.

The Convergence platform supports you in developing your business and defining your plan for compliance with regulations specific to the e-health sector.

To this end, the platform is organized around two tracks:

• digital health doctrine ;
• My health space.

Each of these paths is broken down into steps:

• doctrine is divided into 4 steps: Evaluation and projection socles , Teleconsultation, teleexpertise, telecare;
• My Health Space is divided into 2 steps: referencing without data exchange and referencing with data exchange.

The procedures include questionnaires which, once completed, will enable you to assess the maturity and/or compliance of your products with the digital health doctrine, or the assessments required for My Health Space registration. 

The first step in completing the platform is to identify a manager who will oversee the completion operations. This person can then make an inventory of the products to be included in the scope of data entry, and list the resources to be mobilized: product managers, technical and functional experts, etc. Despite efforts to contextualize the questions, knowledge of healthcare IS interoperability, security and the ambitions of the doctrine of digital health is a prerequisite.

The questionnaires can then be read in groups. Based on the completion of an initial product, the reading of the questionnaires enables the identification of subjects that have been mastered, as well as those that require further investigation.

The pilot can then propose regular meetings with all product managers to monitor the progress of data entry, guarantee the consistency of responses and share expert feedback. 

There are two main user profiles on the Convergence platform:

• Manager: this is either the Corporate Officer or a person authorized by the Corporate Officer; he/she is authorized to add new contributors, create products and grant rights to contributors from his/her company;
• Contributor: authorized to create accounts for other contributors, create products and complete questionnaires, within the limits of the rights assigned to him/her.

Contributors are given access rights to questionnaires for products already created within the platform, and to questionnaires relating to global strategy.

Contributors who do not have the right to validate questionnaires can only save drafts for questionnaires to which they have access.