The thwarted lives of the shared medical record

This article traces the little-known history of the shared medical record (dossier médical partagé - DMP), seen as an innovation whose trajectory, and especially its extraordinary genesis, warrants analysis. The authors look at the representations, decisions and practices that have governed the DMP’s multiple development projects at national level, from its creation in the 2000s to the recent project to integrate it into the “Mon espace santé” portal, which materialized in 2022. The DMP is characterized by cyclical phases of difficulties, suspensions and relaunching, and, 20 years after its first launch, by the fact that it has not yet fully stabilized or achieved its initial objectives. Paying attention to the multiple temporalities of the innovation process, the analysis brings to light the two major conceptions of healthcare IT that have underpinned the development of the DMP. It also highlights the importance of the political and institutional context, as well as the instability of the project’s governance and the role of several of its actors, which contributed to hampering the translation efforts undertaken.