Social innovation to overcome medical deserts. The case of MSA’s Educ’Tour program

This article focuses on medical deserts, i.e. an insufficient density of healthcare professionals in an area, particularly general practitioners, in relation to the healthcare access needs of the area’s inhabitants. Indeed, if we consider the criterion of “localized potential accessibility” (APL) which was designed by Drees (Direction de la recherche, des études, de l’évaluation et des statistiques), one in nine French people live in a medical desert and there is a shortage of doctors in one in three communes in France. To investigate this public health problem, we propose to consider the track of developing social innovation, which is defined as an original initiative consisting of developing a new response to a poorly or unsatisfactorily addressed problem in order to modify the framework for action and social relations. We intend exploring the extent to which it can contribute to combating the emergence of medical deserts by identifying success factors. We explore this topic through the case of the Educ’Tour program, a social innovation supported by a social protection organization, the Mutualité Sociale Agricole (MSA). This program aims to reduce medical deserts in rural areas by introducing health and social care students to coordinated healthcare practice in these areas. We conclude with managerial recommendations and discuss the challenges of developing social innovation in the healthcare environment.