Shareholder's Guide 2022

You launched the transformation of Air Liquide’s Home Healthcare business by implementing a Value-Based Healthcare approach. Could you please explain what this means?

This approach focuses on patients beyond their illness. We put them, as people, at the heart of the healthcare system, taking into account everything that makes them unique. By this I mean their relationship with their illness, their history, their lifestyle and even their family situation. We are moving from a service-based approach to an approach that focuses on the key benefits for patients to improve their quality of life in a more cost-effective way. It is a unique opportunity to organize the entire healthcare ecosystem around a common goal. Leading stakeholders are already implementing it in several countries (hospitals, clinics, healthcare systems), and the results are promising. International organizations⁽¹⁾ are taking part in this transformation and helping shape healthcare policies that promote the emergence of value-based initiatives.

In what way is this approach strategic for Air Liquide?

Around the world, healthcare systems are facing a two-fold challenge: ensuring their continuity and upholding quality of care. Value-Based Healthcare is now essential for Air Liquide, which is taking long-term action to meet this challenge. Today, Air Liquide takes care of 1.8 million patients with chronic diseases. Our combined human and digital approach allows us to offer them more personalized care pathways. Our proximity to our patients and our role as a major player in home healthcare alongside healthcare professionals allow us to contribute to the transformation of healthcare.

What challenges do you face in the coming months?

Although several European countries have begun this patient-centered transformation process, the challenge now is ensuring this initiative is adopted in all regions. We must fundamentally rethink care pathways, with the goal of making them more personalized in order to improve patients’ health and quality of life. We need to prove the value we are generating with this approach, and this requires systematic measurement of the benefits to the patient. This is a complex but exciting task. It requires a coordinated approach from all healthcare professionals in order for the entire ecosystem to reap the benefits. This includes physicians, who can rely on our teams to ensure compliance with treatment, those responsible for covering the costs, who see the optimization of overall care costs, and hospitals, which can focus on critical procedures.