Clinical research and prevention: fundamental elements of sustainable health care systems based on patients’ needs

Abstract

Problems in health care systems are present on a planetary scale due to a discrepancy between scarce
resources and vast needs. These are mainly generated by the aging of the population. Everywhere in the world,
state health care agencies simply reduce the quantity and eventually the quality of available services. This
approach is unacceptable, at least in Europe, where health care is a legal right, granted from birth to death.
This paper departs from the poor support available nowadays for clinical research and the trivial investments
on prevention, and hypothesizes a new approach based on clinical research and prevention which, in the long
term, would generate a just, efficient, sustainable health care system stemming from patients’ needs. This is
discussed from various viewpoints. It emerges that there is a need to switch the focus of health systems away
from cures towards prevention and as well as a need for better translational research. It is of note that in
France such a program based on clinical research and prevention was launched in 2008