Nantes University Hospital, Nantes University, and Doctolib have launched a research and innovation partnership to develop and evaluate AI solutions in healthcare under real-world conditions.
This collaboration aims to co-develop, deploy, and evaluate innovative digital solutions in a real-life university hospital environment, with a central objective: to produce robust scientific evidence of their benefits for caregivers and patients, as well as their safety, acceptability, and organizational impact.
This partnership, the first of its kind for Doctolib, is part of an applied research and real-world evaluation approach. It brings together the clinical and academic expertise of Nantes University Hospital and Nantes University with the technological innovation capabilities of Doctolib and its research teams.
The partners intend to build solutions designed to address clearly identified operational needs within hospital departments and to document their impact on care pathways, patient-reported experience and outcomes, caregiver experience, and hospital organization, within a scientific, evidence-based framework applied to digital health technologies.
The first projects will be initiated within the year. They will be structured around several priority areas, designed to be tested prospectively and evaluated according to predefined protocols.
Priority research areas
Evaluating AI solutions in healthcare for caregivers in near real-world conditions:
The research will focus on analyzing the use and performance of organizational tools designed for hospitals (such as triage algorithms and patient orientation tools). It will provide robust insights into professional adoption, data quality and completeness, as well as potential impacts on care pathways.
Helping parents move forward with confidence to better care for their young children and themselves:
The CHU’s services will evaluate a conversational assistant for parents developed by Doctolib. Joint research protocols will be established to analyze its impact on parental confidence, understanding of health information, navigation of the care system, and interaction with healthcare professionals.
Optimizing care pathways for chronic conditions, outpatient care, and hospital–city care coordination:
Drawing on the expertise of CHU university hospital teams, the partners will explore new areas of clinical and organizational research, particularly in specialties where coordination, access to information, and data structuring are major challenges (such as chronic disease management and pre-admission of patients).
Each project will be conducted as a pilot study over 12 to 24 months within departments of Nantes University Hospital. The solutions will be evaluated using a set of criteria including clinical adoption, impact on care pathways, patient and professional satisfaction, data quality and completeness, reduction in physicians’ administrative workload, and, where relevant, clinical and health economic indicators.
The results are intended to be shared in academic communications and, where data and protocols allow, published in scientific journals.
This partnership will also foster the emergence of fundamental research projects between Nantes University and its laboratories, Nantes University Hospital, and Doctolib, particularly within the framework of the Nantes University Innovation Hub (PUI) and its digital health sector. It will also support the local ecosystem through data challenges and hackathons involving students from Nantes University.
This partnership with Doctolib marks a key step in our commitment to healthcare innovation. It confirms the relevance of La Fabrique de l’Innovation en Santé®, which enables us to support the development and deployment of health innovations with companies, particularly digital ones. By combining our expertise, we aim to accelerate the development of concrete solutions that are useful for both patients and healthcare professionals, and contribute to a more accessible and efficient healthcare system. Together, we share the same ambition: to put digital technology at the service of care pathways and the patient experience, while ensuring data security at every stage.Philippe El Saïr, Director General of Nantes University Hospital
Artificial intelligence in healthcare can only be useful if it is evaluated with the same scientific rigor as any medical advance: protocols, relevant indicators, transparency, and confrontation with real-world conditions. This partnership with Nantes University Hospital, a leading academic hospital player, should make it possible to co-develop pragmatic tools and demonstrate their value through evidence, for the benefit of caregivers and patients.Jean-Urbain Hubau, Managing Director France of Doctolib
For Frédéric Jacquemin, Vice-President for Innovation, Partnerships, and I-Site at Nantes University:
“This partnership with Doctolib reflects a shared ambition to initiate and develop research projects leveraging the academic strengths of Nantes University in health and digital fields. It is also fully aligned with the collaborative momentum of the Nantes University Innovation Hub.”
A partnership at the heart of Nantes’ health innovation ecosystem
This partnership will be based at the Fabrique de l’Innovation en Santé (Nantes University Hospital’s innovation platform, launched in partnership with Nantes University), located in the Gina building, the first component of the “Archipel de la Santé” project by Nantes Métropole.
As a space for co-development, experimentation, and dissemination of digital health solutions, its proximity to hospital services will facilitate the evaluation of digital solutions in real conditions.
Ophélia, a first data-driven project to guide parents
The Ophélia project is based on the observation made by pediatric emergency teams that many visits to pediatric emergency departments are not true emergencies. Ophélia aims to test a new solution designed to guide parents regarding the urgency of their child’s condition.
Within this project, Nantes University Hospital teams will evaluate a pediatric triage model developed by Doctolib by comparing the model’s predictions with actual care decisions. The objective is to assess the robustness of the model in evaluating clinical severity and to optimize it if necessary.
17.06.2026.
SOURCE
AI in health: Nantes University Hospital, Nantes University and Doctolib launch an unprecedented research partnership Press Kit – Doctolib
