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The integration of digitalisation and new technologies in healthcare offers both challenges and opportunities. Swiss citizens are ready for a fully digitised healthcare system if it provides added value, whereas healthcare professionals (HCPs) face concerns with the fear of increased workload and non-intuitive systems. This study explores how HCPs can be empowered to adopt digital health tools effectively.
An in depth online research indicated that while many institutions offer CAS or masters on digital health, few initiatives directly support HCPs in adopting these solutions.
Interviews with Swiss HCPs were conducted on 4 key areas: “ Digital health and Tools”, “Support and Involvement”, “Barriers towards digitalisation”, and “Optimising adoption”.
During the interviews, the healthcare professionals clearly showed their willingness to adopt new technologies. The digital literacy of the participating HCPs is of a high level. They have clear ideas on what to implement next and how it can support them in giving more efficient care to their patients. Enhanced communication between systems (data interoperability) and reduction of administrative burden have the most potential for HCPs. By addressing concerns and potential barriers in an early state, like fear of extra workload and non-intuitive nature of many digital systems, the perception of new digital technologies can be positively altered.
A potential solution for the future is to implement a co-design framework in three stages, where healthcare professionals, clinic leaders but also patients collaboratively determine the priorities and identify potential barriers for new digital health technologies. First to identify and address the priorities, potential benefits and barriers along with strategies to tackle these obstacles. The second stage offers continuous evaluation and adaptation. And finally, in the third stage digital solutions will be implemented with the help of the HCP champions.
In conclusion, actively involving HCPs in the digitalisation process and addressing their concerns and needs are crucial for successful integration of digital health technologies. By leveraging their insights and providing adequate support and training, the healthcare sector can navigate the digital transformation more effectively, ultimately enhancing the work of the healthcare professionals and thereby patient care and outcomes.
This study was conducted with healthcare professionals practising in Switzerland (doctors, nurses, therapists etc). They were contacted via oral interviews or a written questionnaire The HCPs were interviewed in April and May 2024.The online questionnaire was open between April 19th until May 31st 2024. The participation in the online questionnaire was voluntary and anonymous. Certain HCPs gave their authorisation to be named within the study .A total of 25 HCPs filled out the questionnaire and 7 HCPs were interviewed. All percentages are rounded to a whole number. All information regarding the demographic composition can be found in the appendix.
In the evolving landscape of healthcare, the integration of digitalisation and new technologies stands both as a challenge and a promising opportunity. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) as well as patients are at the forefront of this transformation. According to digitalswitzerland’s Digital Health Study (Sternberg, 2022), Swiss citizens are ready to for a fully digitalised healthcare system – if it provides an added value. HCPs on the other hand are more concerned with digital transformation; different studies suggest that infrastructure and technical barriers, as well as psychological and personal issues or increased workload are commonly linked to digitalisation. In fact, the journey towards embracing and adopting digitalisation within healthcare systems still remains today a complex process.
Imagine a world where healthcare professionals navigate a digital realm of patient data, treatment protocols, and innovative tools to enhance patient outcomes, while keeping close contact with the patients. This vision is the key driver to digitalswitzerland’s study which explores how doctors, nurses, physicians, and other healthcare professionals can be empowered to adopt digital health effectively and benefit from digital tools to improve their daily work.
This is why we are researching ways to enhance digital adoption in healthcare among medical professionals (HCPs). This will help us to better understand the needs and challenges HCPs face daily and to better support them in the future
This goal can only be achieved through better understanding of the needs and challenges of HCPs. In-depth interviews with HCPs from Switzerland provided insights into their experiences, challenges, and aspirations. These insights will help to develop a strategy to support/empower HCPs to become advocates for digital health. The four main topics covered in the interviews were “Digital Health and tools”, “support and involvement”, “barriers towards digitalisation” and “optimising adoption”.
To assess existing resources designed to assist healthcare professionals and healthcare systems in integrating digital health technologies, an in-depth online analysis was conducted. The findings indicate that numerous institutions (over 30) are active in this field, primarily offering extensive educational programs such as Certified Advanced Studies (CAS) or master’s degrees as well as multi-day courses targeting managers and clinic leaders. However, this analysis reveals the existence of only a limited number of initiatives that directly support HCPs in adopting digital health solutions effectively. For example, Careum offers a course for ward leaders in how to successfully shape digitalisation and SIWF (Schweizerische Institut für ärztliche Weiter- und Fortbildung) offered a symposia with digitalisation as one of the topics and accredited Seminars from two different firms.
Typically, HCPs are only consulted or brought into the fold after a digital health solution has been implemented, at which point they are expected to use it. This often leads to scepticism, apprehension, and concerns about additional workload. If HCPs are empowered to take active roles in developing and implementing digital health tools, they can become peers to their colleagues and thereby smoothen the integration process and enhance the overall effectiveness of digital health initiatives.
The results of this publication will serve as a baseline to better equip stakeholders and HCPs with the tools and resources they need to adopt digitalisation effectively in their daily work, but also ensure their active involvement in the digitalisation journey. It is crucial to recognise that HCPs are the primary users of digital health tools to improve diagnostics and treatment of patients. Therefore, their engagement is crucial for a successful digitalisation implementation.
Digital health encompasses a variety of technologies and innovations aimed at improving healthcare delivery and management and patient outcomes through digital solutions. This includes tools like the electronic patient record, telemedicine, and wearable devices. (World Health Organisation, 2024; FDA, 2020”) During the interviews, HCPs highlighted several recurring themes. The most frequently mentioned aspects include the importance of electronic patient records and data management, the potential for monitoring and managing chronic illnesses, and the limitations of digital health where physical consultation can not be replaced by telemedicine. The need for improved collaboration and hospital information system integration between healthcare providers to ensure seamless information flow is also mentioned. The HCPs from the study have a good understanding of what digital health entails.
Digital literacy refers to the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills (ALA, 2011). 63% of the interviewed healthcare professionals evaluate themselves as having high to very high health literacy levels (score 4 to 5), with only 4% stating that they have none to low digital capabilities (score 1-2). Keeping in mind that the interviewed HCPs might generally be more interested in digitalisation, they have strong capabilities to understand and adapt to new digital technologies.
Digital health solutions have the potential to significantly enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of HCP. Saving time is one of the key benefits digital tools could bring to HCPs (NHS, 2022), nevertheless, it is important to better understand what HCPs think could most benefit them.
Two of the most named solutions are systems that can properly communicate between each other (data-interoperability), and digital tools that lower the administrative burden.
HCPs are often frustrated about systems that can not communicate with each other. Effective data interoperability means that various healthcare systems can share and use information seamlessly. This will not only streamline workflows but also reduces time spent on manual data entry and retrieval. Dr. med. Conrad Müller also refers to this, bridging the gap between the different systems is key to improve efficiency in healthcare.
A significant portion of HCPs’ is consumed by administrative tasks such as documentation, scheduling, and retrieving information. Digital tools that automate these processes can free up considerable time for HCPs. Nathalie Daina-Laville, Independent nurse specialist in diabetics, also commented on lightening the administrative burden during her interview.
One interviewee stated that up until today HCPs need to support the systems, but now, the time has come for the systems to start supporting the HCPs. This statement underscores the need for user-friendly and efficient digital tools that aid healthcare professionals rather than add to their workload. HCPs are willing to use digital health tools for their daily work as long as it brings clear added value for them and the patients.
Digital health solutions have the potential to transform healthcare delivery, but their design should be guided by the needs and preferences of HCPs. Ensuring data interoperability and reducing the administrative burden are key areas where digital health tools can make a difference. The ultimate goal is to enable HCPs to focus on their primary role: providing patient care.
In recent years, more digital health tools to track patient’s health status have emerged. These can play a critical role in enhancing healthcare delivery and patient outcomes. (Kirk, M. 2019). Among these, sensors for home monitoring are an important tool to increase treatment efficiency, patient satisfaction and reduce the amount of hospitalised patients (Mantena S. 2020). Despite the evident benefits these devices can offer, most of the interviewed HCPs are not using any digital health tools to track patients’ health statuses.
A good example of using devices is reported by Dr. med Conrad Müller. There are sensors with a chip that can monitor vital parameters like temperature, puls, and frequency of breathing which can send live information to the hospital. Thereby allowing the doctor to closely monitor patients who are at home.
Wearables that are mentioned are glucose home monitoring systems and smart watches to monitor heart rates. Some of the interviewed HCPs mention using hospital records that combine prescription assistance with discharge letters and computerised hospital files. These tools primarily support treatment and administrative tasks but do not actively monitor patient health status.
Some HCPs have participated in digital health pilots. One example is COBEDIAS, which focuses on early disease recognition. Another pilot project was around an AI-supported X-ray reading tool by tracking potential diagnoses at the emergency department.
These pilot projects enabled the HCPs working on them to be interested in the new technology since they were intensively involved in testing and could see the direct benefits. This highlights the importance of involving HCPs in the development and testing phases to ensure that the tools are understood and meet the clinical needs.
HCPs who have experienced the benefits of a pilot project or testing the digital health tools first hand can become influential advocates or champions during the implementation phase. This peer-to-peer influence will help foster an environment that is open to digital health innovations.
The adoption of digital health tools or wearables to track patient’s health status holds great promise for improving healthcare. Through a collaborative approach, tools to track a patient’s health status can be effectively integrated into clinical practice, leading to better health outcomes and more efficient care delivery.
As mentioned above, getting HCPs involved in the implementation process enhances the adoption of new digital health tools. In addition, training and education as well as robust infrastructure have shown to be effective (AMA, Digital Health Research 2022). A majority of the interviewed HCPs emphasised the need for training and conferences, preferably in-person, to support the adoption of digital health solutions. Seminars and workshops, especially if integrated into everyday working life and counted as working time, are frequently mentioned. A minority of HCPs mentioned the importance of continuous evaluation and having more training opportunities during work hours.
Intuitive and simple user interfaces that reduce the need for extensive training are also a common suggestion. Involvement in any form is key for adoption and understanding the new technology.
If HCPs do not come into contact with new technologies they can not familiarise themselves with them or adapt to them. For example, as already mentioned previously, pilot projects or workshops on digital solutions help users to get accustomed to them. Peers are frequently named by HCPs as a main source of learning and knowledge sharing. Attending conferences, both in-person and online are also a source of knowledge. Educational videos and reading articles are also popular methods. The interviewed healthcare professionals have a willingness to adopt new technologies within their daily work, but incentivisation and training resources are still limited.
The willingness to be involved in the design and development phase are strongly highlighted. 83% of the interviewed HCPs responded that they would like to be involved at some level of the implementation process of digital health solutions. Within this group of 83%, only 20% are actually involved.
This illustrates that different hospitals and clinics do not leverage their resources efficiently and would be able to bring more innovation forward by co-creating together with their staff.
Graph 1 – Willingness to be involved
Participation in the implementation process of digital health solutions occurs on different levels. They can be divided into: participating in brainstorming sessions to conceptualise, being an active member of the design team, contributing to the testing and validation phase or giving feedback on the suggested digital health tools (Bird, 2021).
The brainstorming sessions would focus on conceptualisation. In these sessions HCPs and other stakeholders would name all ideas that can potentially be beneficial to them. This process is needed to gain insights on the different perspectives the stakeholders have. Among the interviewees, 63% want to be involved in brainstorming sessions, showing their willingness and importance of collaborative creation in the early stages of development.
Being part of the design team allows HCPs to actively shape the digital health solution. About a third (32%) of the interviewed HCPs showed interest in being a member of the design team, indicating that they want to contribute to the creation process.
During the testing and validation phase HCPs can contribute and adapt the final version of the digital health solution. This will improve the user friendliness, intuitivity and meet the required functions set out by the HCPs. 56% of the interviewees were open to be involved in this phase.
Providing feedback during the implementation phase supports the continuous improvement and addressing any issues that might arise post-implementation. 79% of the participants would be willing to give feedback.
Before deciding on implementing a new technology within a hospital, clinic or practice, it is recommended to invite interested HCPs to contribute to the discussion and analysis of said technology.
The motivation behind HCPs to be more involved in the digitisation process is important, however, it is also important to better understand the different barriers that medical professionals are facing.
Infrastructure, the fear of additional workload or personal reasons (resistance to change, perception of less interaction with the patient or the fear of digital tools taking over the work of the HCPs), are commonly named challenges (Borges do Nascimento, I.J., 2023). Only 13% of the interviewed HCPs report not encountering any barriers in implementing digital solutions. Half of the respondents identified infrastructure and fear of extra work as limitations, whereas 29% named personal reasons. The introduction of new digital solutions is often perceived as an additional burden rather than a relief, leading to resistance prior to implementation or understanding of the new system.
Another recurrent issue is the non-intuitive nature of many digital systems. The systems are often complex, requiring significant support and training to be effectively used and perform tasks efficiently. This complexity and the need for extensive training further exacerbate resistance to adopting new technologies.
HCPs and citizens frequently express their concerns on the protection of personal health data. This apprehension is driven by fear of data misuse and rising risks of becoming victims of hacking attacks, as was often mentioned in the media (Bavli, l, 2024).
The protection of personal health data was a commonly voiced concern during the interviews (66%). Many respondents stated that they are worried of data manipulation and misuse by insurance companies. Fear of systems being hacked by third parties is another obstacle. Despite these concerns, ⅓ of the HCPs feel that hospital information systems are becoming increasingly secure and do not identify additional risks in adopting new digital applications. In their perspective, current laws and regulations are sufficient. Health data is already widely available to major technology companies in Switzerland. To address concerns and shift the current narrative on data protection, a stronger emphasis should be made on existing measures taken by both software developers and hospitals. By making them aware and highlighting the robust data protection protocols already in place can help reassure HCPs and improve confidence in digital health solution.
After collecting information on the current state of digital adoption, on HCPs’ involvement, and on identified challenges in the space, it is important to focus on how adoption processes can be optimised in the future (Medoza, L.E. 2023)
Digitalisation in healthcare is currently not advancing at the interviewee’s workplace due to a combination of factors, including a shortage of personnel, limited time, and insufficient financial resources. There is also a notable fear towards change and scepticism about the overall benefits of digitalisation. The lack of collaboration between different healthcare organisations, such as hospitals, clinics and practices, are also significant barriers. There is a general sentiment that current digital tools are not developed with professionals’ needs in mind, and that rigid or conservative structures within companies or organisations make it difficult to incorporate innovative ideas.
To improve the adoption of digitalisation among healthcare professionals, many respondents emphasised the need for simple, user-friendly solutions that enhance administrative efficiency and free up time for direct patient care. There is a strong call for digital tools that are useful and well-adapted to the needs of healthcare professionals, rather than those supporting other stakeholders, like healthcare insurance companies, in the healthcare system. HCPs want training courses integrated into the education program. Additionally, the need for gradual integration, hands-on implementation, and active involvement of healthcare professionals in the design and development of digital solutions is mentioned. To address the scepticism and tiredness towards new systems, it can be helpful to clearly demonstrate their benefits and ensure cooperation among all involved stakeholders.
During the interviews, the healthcare professionals clearly showed their willingness to adopt new technologies. The digital literacy of the participating HCPs is of a high level. They have clear ideas on what to implement next and how it can support them in giving more efficient care to their patients. By addressing concerns and potential barriers in an early state the perception of new digital technologies can be positively altered.
A potential solution for the future is to implement a co-design framework where healthcare professionals, clinic leaders but also patients collaboratively determine the priorities for new digital health technologies. This should tackle potential barriers and issues early in the process, in the end leading to more successful adoption and utilisation of the technology. Based on the findings of this study, and already published research , a framework consisting of three stages is proposed.
The first stage addresses the different stakeholders’ priorities upfront, identifying what benefits the technology needs to deliver, outlining potential barriers, such as fear of extra work and non-intuitivity that are mentioned by the HCPs in this study, along with strategies to tackle these obstacles.
Every stakeholder has different priorities. Hospitals want processes done efficiently, HCPs want to spend as little time as possible on administration and patients want these tools to be easily accessible and used to provide the information they need.
Investing time and resources upfront will save frustrations, revising the tools, and poor implementation after.
The second stage involves continuous evaluation during the development process to ensure that the technology meets its intended goals and is intuitive to use. Continuous evaluation is something HCPs are already doing in their medical processes, and what they are also referring to in this study when asked. This will ensure that the tool will still fulfil its intended tasks for both the side of the HCPs as well as the patients. During this phase the user intuitiveness, which is a key priority to our interviewed HCPs, can be closely monitored. This remains crucial for adoption by the HCPs and will reduce the need of support teams to assist the HCPs to use the new technology after implementation .
And in the third stage, when the development is done, the HCPs become champions of the technology, addressing scepticism among colleagues and demonstrating to them the clear benefits it offers. This creates a crucial role in the phase of implementation with the HCPs who were actively involved in the development phase. Usual practice these days ist that HCP champions are created after a training day with the development team. These (old) champions can still remain sceptical to the new technology, have certain barriers towards it, or do not fully understand all the different possibilities. The HCPs involved in the entire process become real champions that will demonstrate the benefits of the new technology.
This co-design framework will enhance adoption amongst all stakeholders by actively involving them, and assuring it fulfils the needs of the users. It will assure the technology is intuitive to use, improving overall user experience. Lastly, the involvement of the new champions will make the solution sustainable and robust for the future.
In conclusion, actively involving HCPs in the digitalisation process and addressing their concerns and needs are crucial for successful integration of digital health technologies. By leveraging their insights and providing adequate support and training, the healthcare sector can navigate the digital transformation more effectively, ultimately enhancing the work of the healthcare professionals and thereby patient care and outcomes.
This document was written between April 2024 and June 2024 based on the results of the questionnaire: Digitalisation adoption among healthcare professionals
This document was written between April 2024 and June 2024 based on the results of the questionnaire: Digitalisation adoption among healthcare professionals
Main author:
Bryan Quak: Digital Health specialist, digitalswitzerland
Support from:
Jade Sternberg, Senior Project Lead Digital Health, digitalswitzerland
Colin Wallace, Senior Corporate Communications specialist, digitalswitzerland
About digitalswitzerland
digitalswitzerland is a Swiss-wide, cross-industry initiative that aims to transform Switzerland into a leading digital nation. Along with our network of 170+ association members and non-political partners, including more than 1,000 top executives, we’re engaged in over 25 projects to inspire, initiate, co-create and lead digital change in Switzerland.
Our mission is to orchestrate the digital transformation of Switzerland to become a leading digital nation. To achieve this goal, we work closely together with our members, partners, and other important stakeholders. We address all aspects of digitalisation and focus on generating impact in relevant topics, such as Education, Professionals and Diversity, Digital Health, and more.
About Digital Health initiative
digitalswitzerland’s Digital Health initiative aims to digitalise the entire healthcare system in Switzerland and make it patient-centric. This will help increase transparency, accessibility and understanding of health information for the entire Swiss population. All healthcare actors need to collaborate, including the healthcare professionals and patients to achieve this ambitious goal.
| Term | Definition |
| Administrative Burden | The workload associated with administrative tasks such as documentation and scheduling. |
| AMA (American Medical Association) | A professional association for physicians in the United States that supports the advancement of medical practice. |
| Automated Voice-to-Text Tool | Technology that converts spoken language into written text automatically. |
| Barriers | Obstacles that prevent the successful implementation or adoption of something. |
| Careum Foundation | A Swiss institution that offers educational courses for healthcare professionals. |
| CAS (Certified Advanced Studies) | Specialised postgraduate courses aimed at providing advanced knowledge in specific areas. |
| Champion | An advocate or proponent who actively supports or promotes something. |
| COBEDIAS | A Swiss pilot project focusing on early disease recognition. |
| Co-design Framework | A collaborative approach involving various stakeholders in the design and development process. |
| Continuous Evaluation | Ongoing assessment to ensure that a process or system meets its goals and remains effective. |
| Data Interoperability | The ability of different systems and organisations to exchange and use data seamlessly. |
| Digital Health Tools | Technologies designed to improve healthcare delivery and patient outcomes through digital means. |
| Digital Health Solutions | Applications and technologies used to improve health care services and delivery through digital means. |
| Digital Literacy | The ability to use information and communication technologies, to find, evaluate, create and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills |
| Digital Network Structure | A framework that allows different digital systems to connect and communicate. |
| Digital Transformation | The integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, fundamentally changing how it operates. |
| Digitalisation | The process of converting information into a digital format. |
| FDA (Food and Drug Administration) | The US government agency responsible for regulating food, drugs, and medical devices. |
| Hacking Attacks | Unauthorised access to computer systems to steal or manipulate data. |
| Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) | Medical personnel such as doctors, nurses, and other health practitioners. |
| Hospital Information System | An integrated system that manages the administrative, financial, and clinical aspects of a hospital. |
| In-depth Online Research | Comprehensive and detailed investigation conducted via the internet. |
| Infrastructure | The basic physical and organisational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise. |
| Multi-sector Collaborations | Partnerships that involve multiple sectors or industries working together. |
| Non-intuitive Systems | Systems that are not easy to use or understand without significant training. |
| Personal Health Data | Information related to an individual’s health status, healthcare, or medical history. |
| Pilot Projects | Initial small-scale implementations of a project to test its feasibility and benefits. |
| Post-implementation | The phase after a new system or technology has been deployed, focusing on its continued use and improvement. |
| SIWF (Schweizerische Institut für ärztliche Weiter- und Fortbildung) | A Swiss institute for medical education and continuing education. |
| Telemedicine | The use of telecommunications technology to provide medical care remotely. |
| Wearable Devices | Electronic devices worn on the body that can track health metrics like heart rate and activity levels. |
| WHO (World Health Organization) | An international public health agency of the United Nations. |
Chapter 2.1 Digital Health and Tools
2.1.1 What are your thoughts when it comes to Digital Health?
2.1.2 How do you rate your digital literacy?
2.1.3 Which digital health solutions could benefit your work? What do you want to be implemented?
2.1.4 Do you already use specific digital health tools or wearables to track your patient’s health status?
2.2 Support and Involvement
2.2.1 How could you be supported in adopting digital health solutions?
2.2.2 How do you familiarise yourself with new technologies? Do you use platforms or tools to better adopt digitalisation in your daily work?
2.2.3 Would you like to be involved in the design and development of digital health solutions? Are you already involved?
2.2.4 If you are interested in being part of the innovation process, what type of involvement would you like to have?
2.3 Barriers
2.3.1 Which barriers do you see when it comes to the implementation of digital solutions?
2.3.2 Could you elaborate on the barriers about the implementation of digital solutions that you checked above?
2.3.3 Are you worried about the protection of personal health data?
2.3.4 Why are you (not) worried?
2.4 Optimising adoption process
2.4.1 What do you think is needed to improve adoption of digitalisation among healthcare professionals?
2.4.2 Why is digitalisation in healthcare currently not improving at your workplace? What do your think are the reasons for slow pace digitalisation in healthcare?
2.4.3 Would you like to add something to this questionnaire? Is there an important topic for you related to Digital Health we didn’t discuss?
Graph 2 – Gender
Graph 3 – Age Groups
Graph 4 – Profession
Graph 5 – Type of Workplace
Graph 7 – Workplace rural of urban
Graph 8 – Region of Workplace
Graph 9 – Linguistic region of workplace
The adoption of digitalisation by healthcare professionals: Insights and Opportunities
Zurich, 2.07.2024
Although great care has been taken in the preparation of this publication, the author and contributors involved are not responsible for the accuracy of the data, information and advice provided, nor for any printing errors.
All rights reserved, including translation into other languages. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transcribed and/or translated into any computer language, including any information processing language, in any form without the prior written permission of the authors.
The rights to the trademarks mentioned remain with their respective owners.
Coordination of the publication: Bryan Quak, Jade Sternberg and Colin Wallace (digitalswitzerland)
Graphic design: Lina Alice Machts (Ads and Ventures)
From 18th – 20th June, the Digital Identity unConference Europe (DICE) took part in Zurich. It served as a magnifying glass to the world of digital identities, revealing insights and collaborative efforts across various states, industries and communities.
The first day of the unConference contained inputs from representatives in government, business and technology. In a highly anticipated opening statement Federal Councillor Beat Jans, the ‘elephant in the room’ got addressed right away: When and in what form will the E-ID and the associated trust infrastructure be ready? Mr. Jans clarified the projected timeline and the expected form of the new E-ID infrastructure in Switzerland, as the Swiss parliament is set to pass the necessary legislation in the upcoming fall. The Federal administration envisions a multi-stack approach, relying on different technologies in order to ensure optimal security as well as interoperability. The Federal Councillor’s insights built on the previous rejection of an E-ID project by Swiss voters in 2021. As a consequence, Mr. Jans emphasised that the revised approach aimed to be more transparent and secure, incorporating feedback from various stakeholders to ensure broader acceptance.
Additionally, the first day of the DICE set the Swiss E-ID project in an international context: Discussions explored how other countries are navigating the challenges and opportunities of digital identity systems, highlighting the diverse approaches to E-ID implementations across different regions of the world. From the EU’s eIDAS framework to the US government’s E-ID projects, the discussions underscored the importance of considering cultural and legal differences as well as the challenges regarding interoperability that lie ahead. Interoperability between different E-ID systems holds the premise of a seamless user experience and broader acceptance, yet it remains a challenging frontier. Various panellists emphasised the need for a steady and well-structured approach when it comes ensuring interoperability.
For the remaining days of DICE,the traditional conference format was abandoned. Instead, the unConference format fostered an open, participatory environment where every attendee could contribute and set up their own sessions to discuss a specific topic. This dynamic setup allowed for a fluid exchange of ideas and projects, making it an ideal setting for tackling the multifaceted issues of digital identity.
A recurring theme was the critical need for trust to achieve broader user acceptance, which was illustrated by discussions surrounding the implementation of the EU identity wallet system. Practical user experience focuses on making interfaces user-friendly and straightforward, with feedback loops to refine the system. Experts pointed to the importance of the wallet’s contextual relevance, accessibility to a vast amount of users, and ability to protect sensitive data. Industry standards can thereby influence its functionalities, while guardianship mechanisms should ensure that users’ rights and data are protected. The recovery process was mentioned as a vital aspect, as it must be robust and user-friendly to mitigate data loss risks and reinforce user trust in the system. By enhancing these aspects, the EU aims to create a digital identity wallet that is not only technologically robust but also widely accepted and used by the public.
The concept of organisational identity emerged as a more recent effort within the digital identity sphere. Organisational identity addresses how companies and organisations maintain their unique digital presence securely and consistently in a digital space. As organisations increasingly interact with various digital ecosystems — be it for regulatory compliance, customer engagement, or internal operations — the need for a coherent and secure organisational digital identity becomes paramount. Such an identity thereby encapsulates the organisation’s core attributes, such as its business type, industry standards, and operational roles, ensuring that all transactions and interactions are traceable and verifiable. Additionally, as organisations undergo digital transformations, maintaining a consistent identity across multiple platforms and services is essential to prevent fraud and enhance operational efficiency. Implementing strong authentication and authorization mechanisms can help organisations mitigate risks and enhance trust with partners and customers.
With quantum computing on the horizon, the unConference also touched upon the need for quantum-resistant digital identities. As quantum computers become more and more powerful in future, they could potentially break many of the cryptographic protocols that current digital identity systems rely on. The digital identity community is increasingly focused on developing quantum-resistant cryptography methods to ensure that digital identities remain secure even as the landscape of computing evolves. The challenge lies not only in developing these new cryptographic standards but also in integrating them into existing digital systems in a way that is seamless and transparent to users. This proactive approach in anticipating quantum resilience will play a vital role in maintaining the long-term security and viability of digital identity systems, safeguarding user data against future technological disruptions and ensuring that the digital identity ecosystem can withstand the next wave of upcoming computing advancements.
The Digital Identity unConference Europe was an innovative and collaborative ground for sowing the seeds and growing solutions of future digital identity frameworks and technologies. The discussions and insights provided not only a snapshot of current challenges and innovations but also a vision for the path forward — a path characterised by inclusivity, security, and adaptability to future technological shifts.
This publication is addressed to players of the digital health ecosystem in Switzerland. It provides clear and actionable recommendations to facilitate the transition between the end of design phase and the deployment phase, tackling crucial aspects of the challenge. The recommendations were collected during an insightful event for digital health organisations in Western Switzerland co-organised by digitalswitzerland and Biopôle on 30 April, featuring Tigen Pharma’s achievements in the space and an interactive expert panel discussion.
Digitalisation opens up a whole new source of knowledge for stakeholders to collect, store and share data between different healthcare stakeholders. Digital health solutions have been growing massively in Switzerland in the last years, expanding in various areas such as telemedicine, wearables, patient records, healthy ageing, mental health, femtech, value-based healthcare and personalised medicine. Western Switzerland has a strong footprint in the digital health innovation space with the presence of universities and university hospitals, innovation hubs, and a large biotech ecosystem2. Digital health startups and scaleups face many hurdles when transitioning between the end of design and the deployment of the digital health solutions. 90%3 of startups do not make it through their first year, and 50% survive through the first five years.
“We do not only collaborate with startups. We learn! We need to get this knowledge, it’s a real collaboration. We bring our skills and gain learnings from them – it’s important!” – Sébastien Fabbri
“This is precisely the role of the Genolier Innovation hub, to bring the healthcare stakeholders together under one roof (patients and doctors) and reduce the latency time.” – Anna Gräbner
“Diversifying our team enriches our thinking, improves our decision making and strengthens our position in the market.” – Anna Gräbner
“To differentiate, you need to have a strong concept. To be memorable you must be able to scale. You need a well-founded architecture with high privacy, security, interoperability aspects but also a user centric interface.” Sébastien Fabbri
“Please never disclose your know-how and your inventions in public publications because it will then fall into the public domain, and anyone can then use it.” – Lorenza Ferrari Hofer
“You should not be in love with your first idea.” – Antoine Maison
Founded in 2004 by the canton of Vaud public authorities, Biopôle SA is a private, not-for-profit organisation, which owns, manages and promotes the life sciences campus. We believe that interpersonal and inter-company relationships are the key to successful innovation. That’s why we focus on creating an environment in which you and your teams can prosper by collaborating with the Biopôle community and beyond. Biopôle is particularly active in supporting digital health. With dedicated offices and IT infrastructure (Digital Health Hub), innovation programmes (Biopôle/SHS Digital Health Vanguard Accelerator), and dedicated funding (Biopôle Fund – Digital Health track), Biopôle counts among its member more than 30 companies using digital health technologies to deploy their solution.
digitalswitzerland is a Swiss-wide, cross-industry initiative that aims to transform Switzerland into a leading digital nation. Along with our network of 170+ association members and non-political partners, including more than 1,000 top executives, we’re engaged in over 25 projects to inspire, initiate, co-create and lead digital change in Switzerland. Digital Health is a focus program of digitalswitzerland which aims to digitalise the entire healthcare system in Switzerland and make it patient-centric. We drive various activities in collaboration with the different healthcare stakeholders in the sector on topics like the electronic patient record, digital health literacy and more. digitalswitzerland also enables digital health scaleups to be positioned as thought leaders in the ecosystem through the Digital Health Academy, a 6-month cohort-based programme for scaleups which enable patients to better understand and monitor their data.
Footnotes
1) ELCA supports Tigen to accelerate cell-based cancer therapies, 2023
(digitalswitzerland, 2023)
2) The Swiss healthcare system: entering a new digital era A visualisation of the pioneering solutions that inspire a digital health ecosystem
3) Power-Launch of the Swiss Startup Association
4) private data centres that companies house in their own facilities and maintain themselves
5) cloud computing environment dedicated to a single organisation
6) cloud computing model where IT infrastructure like servers, networking, and storage resources are
offered as virtual resources accessible over the internet
7) use of cloud services from more than one cloud vendor
8) Data security is the process of protecting digital information from unauthorised access, corruption or theft throughout its entire lifecycle.
9) Data sovereignty refers to a group or individual’s right to control and maintain their own data, which includes the collection, storage, and interpretation of data.
As an Alpine country, Switzerland is particularly hard affected by the consequences of climate change. Since pre-industrial times, the average temperature in Switzerland has risen by around 2 degrees Celsius – twice as much as the global average.
As part of the international community, Switzerland has committed to reducing its emissions by 50% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. The study “Smart and Green – Digital Pathways to Net Zero” published by digitalswitzerland and economiesuisse in cooperation with Accenture, shows how digital technologies in the buildings, transport, industry, agriculture, and energy sectors can contribute to reducing CO2 emissions.This is an example sentence with a footnote reference.
The results are unambiguous: Digitalisation offers a significant contribution to the 2030 climate target. In the industries analysed, digital technologies have the potential to reduce emissions by 1.2 to 3.2 million tonnes of CO2eq. This corresponds to closing 7 to 20% of the existing climate gap (the emissions to be reduced from today until 2030).
Please find the full study in German, or check out the executive summary in English or French.
Women are still significantly underrepresented in tech-related professions. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, McKinsey & Company, the Competence Centre for Diversity & Inclusion at the University of St. Gallen and digitalswitzerland are releasing the white paper “The unseen code: Unlock Switzerland’s female tech potential”. It serves as strategic guidance for the executives, policymakers, and professionals in the technology industry who are navigating the challenges posed by this shortage, with a specific focus on Switzerland.
Featuring expert insights from leaders in the Swiss technology industry, The white paper highlights the need to address the talent shortage and to enhance Switzerland’s competitiveness by empowering female talents to enter or transition to tech professions: Creating a corporate culture that supports women is crucial, as is retaining talent, promoting career changers, and enabling women to enter the industry in the first place. Additionally, it is important to take measures across company boundaries to address structural factors and make the tech industry more attractive to women.
In our latest whitepaper, “Charting the Future: Switzerland’s Path to Generative AI Leadership in 2024 and Beyond”, we dissect the transformative impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) in Switzerland as of 2024. Backed by a survey of 279 Swiss professionals and insights from expert-led Digital Xchange workshops, the findings paint a vivid picture of the GenAI landscape.
The Current Landscape: The survey reveals a robust 62% adoption of AI, with a significant 30.6% implementation across five or more business functions. However, a closer look uncovers a landscape in flux, with 50% of respondents anticipating a major shift in jobs within the next three to five years.
Challenges and Concerns: While enthusiasm for GenAI is palpable, concerns remain. Privacy, data breaches, and over-reliance on technology emerge as key worries. Furthermore, a staggering 52% of organisations lack clear policies on AI in the workplace, indicating a critical need for guidelines.
Urgent Issues: Two pressing issues demand immediate attention. First, the survey signals an outright explosion in demand for skills training as GenAI reshapes the workplace. Second, there is a concerning lack of awareness among Swiss professionals regarding official GenAI policies, with only a third advocating for more government regulation.
Actionable Recommendations: Our whitepaper concludes with strategic recommendations for policymakers, business leaders, and education providers. Urgent actions include the establishment of a robust educational and political framework, investment in transforming continuing education, and a focus on the judicious use of GenAI to maximise opportunities while minimising risks.
Join the Conversation: As Switzerland stands at the crossroads of GenAI innovation, we invite you to study the full whitepaper, to gain a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Read the full report here.
This whitepaper was jointly created and published by digitalswitzerland, IMD and EPFL.
Switzerland is one of the most innovative countries in the world, but when it comes to digitalisation of its healthcare system, the process of implementation is very slow. Nevertheless, the Federal Council is currently supporting the transformation with its Health2030 Strategy and its digital health promotion programme Digisanté. A central pillar of this digitalisation process is the electronic patient record (EPR) which has faced many hurdles to be implemented and adopted successfully due to the fragmented Swiss healthcare system.
Switzerland has three main regions, which are home to digital health innovations: canton of Zurich, the Arc lémanique region and the Great Basel Area. These locations place Switzerland as a great digital health market where companies and startups choose to settle. 357 digital health startups were identified in Switzerland by the Swiss Healthcare Startup’s directory guide spanning through the entire patient journey (from prevention to diagnosis, treatment and monitoring). This correlates with the constant increase in investment in such ventures. However, these organisations face many hurdles, especially with reimbursement of their solutions, as the mechanism is complex and reimbursement for digital health solutions is not transparent.
According to our population survey, conducted in 2022, 68% of the population want to be owners of their personal health data. It is therefore key to empower patients more to better understand and use their health data through training, education and awareness-raising measures. Swiss Health Data Space, is a new initiative going in this direction, as it recruits pioneers who want to test and explore the digital healthcare infrastructure in Switzerland while keeping full control and ownership of their health data.
Digital health ecosystems are slowly emerging, for example networks of different organisations and solutions across the healthcare sector that share a digital infrastructure to ensure a seamless experience for patients. These networks increase transparency and efficiency in communication between the different actors. One such example is the Swiss Patient Journey Ecosystem Map.
Already now, numerous Swiss solutions support the overall patient empowerment, such as the four scaleups that were part of the Digital Health Academy’s 2023 cohort: Decentriq, heyPatient, Soignez-moi, and TOM Medications.
Eventually, the future of healthcare should be human-centric, fostering education and empowerment of the population to better understand their health data and navigate their digital health journey. Citizens should collaborate more with healthcare professionals, as this will strengthen their relationship and trust, as well as ensuring the continuum of care. Additionally, innovators and investors need to build symbiotic relationships as strategic investors provide valuable resources to innovators who are navigating the complex healthcare landscape; this will ensure long-term impact. Last but not least, public authorities need to set national standards and a clear framework for digital health in Switzerland, ensuring that solutions to our current problems are based on the same standards.
Switzerland is recognised as one of the most innovative countries in the world, highly ranked for many years in the IMD World Digital Competitiveness (WDC): it was ranked 5th in 2022 and in 2023 it can hold its position once again (IMD World Competitiveness Center, 2022). Similarly, Switzerland ranks 1st in the Global Innovation Index (Dutta et al., 2023), with the Index highlighting the significant R&D investment of Swiss global corporates, led by life science giants Roche and Novartis.
The Swiss healthcare system is one of the sectors in which Switzerland still lags behind in terms of digitalisation, as underlined by the “Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Digitalisation Index” (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2019), where it was only ranked 14th.
Digital health refers to the use of information and communications technologies in medicine and other health professions to manage illnesses and health risks and to promote wellness (Ronquillo et al., 2023). It has a broad scope, spanning through the entire patient journey (from prevention to diagnosis, treatment and monitoring) and includes mobile health apps, electronic health records, wearable devices with sensors, telemedicine and personalised medicine. Digital health has various benefits such as accessibility, accuracy, time saving and cost reduction.
The COVID-pandemic played a massive role in digital health’s growth worldwide, as new solutions were developed to support the healthcare of the population through the crisis, and a necessity to switch to at-home or minimal contact care models. Certain countries have been able to implement the necessary infrastructure and regulations required to digitalise their healthcare systems such as Estonia, Canada, Spain, Israel and Denmark. Their governments have made clear commitments to supporting the development of the sector.
Switzerland is also trying to win back lost times by developing the digital health sector positively through various innovative solutions.
The Federal Council is currently supporting the digital transformation of healthcare in Switzerland through different ways. In the Health2030 Strategy, it defined the new health policy priorities, setting digital transformation as one of the main objectives (Federal Office of Public Health, 2019). In addition, the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) and the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) are jointly developing on behalf of the Federal Council, the digital health promotion programme Digisanté (Federal Office of Public Health – Digisanté, 2023).
Switzerland is facing complexities in the introduction of digital solutions such as the electronic patient record (EPR) (Patientrecord.ch). Due to its fragmented healthcare system and cantonal policies, its law has recently been placed in consultation to identify the optimal changes required for it to finally be adopted successfully by the population. As the governmental solution is taking a lot of time to be installed, healthcare players identified opportunities to launch joint consortiums to provide a digital health platform. The two biggest consortiums are Compassanna (Bluespace Ventures AG, 2023) and Well (Well Gesundheit AG, 2023).
In recent population studies, it was clearly identified that the Swiss population is willing to share their health data digitally (Pletscher & Lerch, 2022) and onboard a digital health journey (Sternberg, 2022) given it has clear added value.
Switzerland’s digital health landscape has expanded in various areas over the years: telemedicine, wearables, patient records, healthy ageing, mental health, femtech, value-based healthcare and personalised medicine.
Three principal regions are home to digital health innovations: Canton of Zurich, the Arc lémanique region and the Great Basel Area.
Zurich is the home to major technology companies, key universities in Switzerland (ETH, UZH, ZHAW) as well as many hospitals. In recent years, Zurich has grown its digital health footprint through the development of digital health hubs and incubators such as Digital Health centre in Bülach, Bluelion, and HealthTechPark in Schlieren.
L’Arc lémanique has also expanded massively, especially around Lausanne and Geneva due to the presence of EPFL, university hospitals (CHUV and HUG) and campus of Biotech Innovation Park and Biopôle.
Last but not least, the Great Basel area is a flourishing region, where pharmaceutical companies and medtech are closely located to the university hospital. DayOne from Basel Area has also recently grown massively and is leading a four-year Innosuisse Innobooster around digital health, the Digital Health Nation Innobooster.
These ideal locations position Switzerland as a great digital health market where companies choose to settle, and startups choose to be founded.
The digital health startup scene is also growing massively in Switzerland with 357 digital health related startups and scaleups identified in Swiss Healthcare Startups’ digital directory in October 2023 (Cortex – Swiss Healthcare Startup, 2023). Many incubators and acceleration programmes support the emergence of startups such as the Digital Health Nation Innobooster (Basel Area Business & Innovation, 2023).
Investment into Swiss digital health startups has been steadily increasing until this year, reaching 30 investment rounds in 2022 (8% of all rounds) totalling close to 200M CHF (5% of all capital invested to Swiss startups in 2023). Just over 50% of these funds were invested into digital health startups in canton Vaud (Swiss Venture Capital Report, 2023).
One major hurdle which the startups in digital health are continuously facing is their business model, as reimbursement of digital health solutions in Switzerland is still not a transparent process. In comparison, Germany’s DiGa legislation is in place since the end of 2019 (BfArM, 2023), Belgium’s mHealth app reimbursement since 2021 (Agoria and beMedTech, 2023), and France’s PECAN legislation was approved earlier this year (2023) (Farah et al., 2023). Health applications in Switzerland that follow specific rules can be reimbursed by the basic insurance as stated in the Information Sheet provided by the Federal Office of Public Health (Federal Office of Public Health, 2022).
According to digitalswitzerland’s 2022 study, which is based on the results of a population survey on the needs and fears towards the digitalisation of the Swiss healthcare system, citizens are willing to share their data digitally, given it has clear added value such as better usability (Sternberg, 2022).
It must also offer enhanced prevention, improved diagnosis and treatments and lower healthcare costs. One major finding from the study is the correlation between the level of education and the level of digital literacy and health literacy in Switzerland.
Careum Foundation, combined both terms into a new term, digital health literacy, which is defined as the degree to which individuals are able to obtain, understand and judge health information from digital sources and use it to make decisions about their health. Careum Foundation worked on a two-year study project on health literacy (2019-2021) where they found that 72% of the Swiss population has difficulties in dealing with digital information and services and accordingly has very low levels of digital health literacy (De Gani et al., 2021).
Giving equal access to digital health competences in Switzerland should be a key focus to enable the population to feel empowered over their health data. More awareness-raising measures should be developed to support this.
68% of the population want to be the owners of their personal health data (Sternberg, 2022). Citizens want to be in control of their health data, know who has access to it and give consent to how it can be used for research (swissethics, 2021). The electronic patient record (EPR) is going in this direction as each individual has control over who can access their health information. The Federal Act on the electronic patient record, which states the framework conditions for the EPR has recently been put in revision to be adapted and ensure a successful adoption and use within Switzerland (Federal Office of Public Health – EPRA, 2023).
Furthermore, a new initiative was launched at the end of 2022 with Swiss Health Data Space, which recruits pioneers who want to test and explore the health data landscape in Switzerland while keeping full control and ownership of their health data (Verein Gesundheitsdatenraum Schweiz, 2022).
The future of healthcare should be human-centric with a key focus set on educating and empowering the citizens to better understand their health data and navigate their digital health journey. This enables the patient to stay in better control of his health, their wellbeing, and therefore stay healthier longer.
Digital ecosystems have disrupted many industries such as mobility, retail or media over the last years. In recent years, they have also started to appear in the digital health sector as networks of diverse organisations and solutions across the healthcare sector. They are connected by a shared digital infrastructure which ensures a seamless patient journey combining in medical data and patient generated data. These ecosystems enable disparate siloed solutions to be connected to ensure the patient has access to the best prevention, diagnostic, treatment and monitoring possible.
A digital health ecosystem ensures clear added value for the different actors (Deetjen et al., 2020):
Crucial for such digital ecosystems is the need to identify and articulate positive network effects across different user platform view, and to grow the critical mass that each one has an immediate benefit from participating in such platforms (Zhu & Iansiti, 2019).
Additionally, digital ecosystems increase transparency and efficiency in communicating between the different players to improve the overall value for the system.
digitalswitzerland has therefore created a Swiss Patient Journey Ecosystem Map to illustrate the different digital solutions focussing on enhancing the digital patient journey and digitalisation of the healthcare system in Switzerland. This representation enables the different players to remove the gaps, identify synergies between themselves and enhance collaboration.
The Q4 2023 map illustrates more than 80 different players distributed along the five different categories: data interoperability, health monitoring, healthcare interactions, medical data history, prevention/ awareness.
Figure 1 – The Swiss Patient Journey Ecosystem Map – Q4 2023
Switzerland has a great number of digital health solutions which support the overall empowerment of patients to better understand their health data and navigate their health journey. We will introduce the four key scaleups of the year: Decentriq, heyPatient, Soignez-moi and TOM Medications.
The challenge
To address the most pressing challenges in healthcare today, organisations require access to data beyond their borders. Between clinical notes, lab tests, medical images, sensor readings, genomics, electronic health records and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), copious amounts of real-world data (RWD) are generated daily, hiding a wealth of potential insights that could lead to better treatment and diagnosis — if they would be connected. Switzerland is at the forefront of healthcare innovation, possessing a wide ecosystem composed of pharmaceutical companies, leading hospitals and startups. However, the data is often siloed due to privacy concerns and poor data interoperability, making it hard for organisations to access and utilise it. This poses a dilemma for data custodians, like hospitals, who must balance patient privacy with the potential life-saving benefits of collaborative data use.
Solution
Decentriq combines confidential computing technology with a data clean room (DCR) framework to create a comprehensive platform for secure data collaborations at scale. This platform addresses the healthcare industry’s challenges by assuring both data privacy and data usability. It allows for rapid setup of data clean rooms that merge data from various sources without ever exposing any raw data and without any special equipment needed on-site.
Confidential computing technology provides hard proof that data is always under the data custodian’s control and never accessible by anyone else — not by other organisations participating in the collaboration, nor Decentriq, nor the cloud provider. Finally, advanced privacy filters ensure that retrieved results won’t unintentionally reveal private information.
Impact on the patient
The use of RWD greatly accelerates research and development, as well as legislative decision-making processes, resulting in quicker access to more effective treatments in the market. When treatments become more targeted and administered more promptly, patients experience improved outcomes. Hospitalisations are minimised, and care providers can potentially intervene even before they become necessary thanks to improved diagnostics models. This means patients benefit from more efficient and proactive healthcare solutions.
Testimonies
“Decentriq’s unique solution gives us the ability to bring diverse datasets together for research while strictly preserving patient privacy. By facilitating secure analysis, their innovative approach holds the promise of improved patient outcomes and a more collaborative healthcare ecosystem.”
— Prof. Dr. med. Dirk Müller-Wieland, Director of Center for Cardiological Studies, University Clinic RWTH Aachen
Team
Decentriq was founded by Maximilian Groth and Stefan Deml in 2019 in Zurich. They lead a team of 35 people from the company’s headquarters in Zurich and are distributed across more than 10 European countries. The company’s mission is to foster data collaboration, even with the world’s most sensitive data.
Collaboration & Partnerships
Data clean rooms powered by confidential computing have enabled the following use cases:
Development of tools to enable earlier treatment of rare diseases
Using Decentriq, data custodians from hospitals make rare disease datasets available — offering a comprehensive perspective of the patient journey without revealing patient row-level information or risking patient reidentification.
Linking clinical trial data with RWD
With Decentriq’s DCR technology, pharmaceutical companies can combine patient data, match it to clinical trial data, and analyse the data to create more targeted treatments — all while preserving patient privacy.
Enabling transformative healthcare networks
Decentriq is providing core infrastructure enabling iCARE4CVD consortium partners to bring together data on over one million cardiovascular disease patients while ensuring patient privacy.
Research of this magnitude has the potential to transform care for the 60 million Europeans, and many more around the world, impacted by cardiovascular diseases.
Future vision of healthcare
Decentriq’s vision for the future of healthcare is one where more organisations can collaborate on health data while resting assured that this data will remain private. We look forward to seeing how these collaborations can result in pioneering research and advances in diagnostics, treatment, and patient care.
The challenge
Doctors use 80% of their time for administration, while patient-faced processes are mostly still paper-based. Healthcare costs explode and puts healthcare service provision at stake. A joint study from McKinsey and ETH concluded that Switzerland can reach annual savings of CHF 8.2 billion per year through the use of patient-centred digital health solutions (Hämmerli et al., 2021). The potential health impact and medical utility are substantial.
Solution
heyPatient streamlines processes, relieves staff members, thus improves healthcare outcomes and reduces costs.
Impact on the patient
heyPatient’s impact on patients is significant, as it digitally accompanies patients along their journey across various healthcare providers, simplifies interaction, thus improves healthcare outcomes.
Patients’ Testimonies
Here are two quotes that capture this impact:
“With heyPatient, I no longer have to spend hours managing my healthcare appointments and paperwork. It has made my healthcare experience much more convenient.”
“heyPatient is like having a personal healthcare assistant in my pocket, it helps me manage my health by making everything from appointments to communication with healthcare staff much easier.”
Team
heyPatient’s dedicated team consists of 12 individuals with a diverse range of expertise, who have achieved remarkable success in building a strong offering and establishing an awarded, market-proven healthcare SaaS-solution (Swiss made software) with highest customer value.
The co-founders Matthias and Regula Spuehler, both serial founders, lead in the role of CEO and COO with a strong commitment, owning over 75% of heyPatient AG.
Every team member is an expert in their field, allowing heyPatient to quickly develop and deploy value-focused services and solutions for their customers.
Collaboration & Partnerships
heyPatient is dedicated to collaboration and has achieved significant success:
Future vision of healthcare
heyPatient’s future vision for healthcare centres on the simplification of interactions with increased patient-centricity, efficiency, and digitalisation. This encompasses:
The challenge
It happens often that one is sick and cannot reach their General Practitioner (GP) or they do not have an available appointment for treatment. What can be even worse, is to wait countless hours in an emergency department (ED). Soignez-moi.ch has a solution to help patients in such situations.
Solution
Reaching out to a doctor has never been that easy. Soignez-moi provides a simple solution to treat everyday symptoms that drag patients down. Soignez-moi’s medical questionnaire is free of charge and its triage indicates if someone can be treated remotely or a physical consultation is required. By design, Soignez-moi is a patient-centric and fully digital company where the patient decides his journey and is in charge of their data. They are the only provider in Switzerland that can send prescriptions directly to patients, thus allowing them to choose freely where they want to get their medicine. Their triage module is also extremely customisable and allows hospitals to improve patients’ flow in the emergency department. By better defining the level of emergency ahead and thanks to their modular approach, a hospital can better plan certain cases (pre-defined symptom or group of symptoms), or refer patients to various care centres, depending on infrastructure and available personnel.
How it works
Soignez-moi provides a simple and intuitive solution:
Business Model
For a flat fee of CHF 59 reimbursed by the mandatory health insurance (if any, the exam/test are also covered by mandatory health insurance).
Impact on the patient
The impact on patients is huge since they have direct access to a doctor within a couple of minutes and thus can be treated and relieved. The best way to ensure that a solution has a real impact on people is to perform a survey. Soignez-moi therefore send a satisfaction survey one week after the consultation of a patient ended. 40% of their patients filled in this questionnaire and more than 95% rate their experience with 4 stars .
Patients’ Testimonies
“Fast, proactive and efficient. I would use the service again without hesitation given the difficulty of obtaining a physical appointment with a general practitioner.”
“It was really fast and I really appreciated the doctor I had on the phone, very understanding and attentive!”
Team
Soignez-moi has a very seasoned team that supports their vision. Just within the founders, they have more than 50 years of healthcare experience. The team includes a dedicated team of developers all coming from Lausanne. Their medical protocols have been validated scientifically by the Notfall Zentrum of Inselspital, thus giving credibility to the work performed by their doctors.
Collaboration & Partnerships
Soignez-moi have treated more than 23,000 patients over the last three years and have been able to conclude renowned partnerships in the Swiss French part. They are the telemedicine provider for Réseau Delta (>950 registered GPs), Medbase Romandie, Hôpital la Tour, Hôpital de Réseau Neuchâtelois, Hôpital Jules Gonin, etc.
Future vision of healthcare
The future of healthcare for Soignez-moi.ch is a dynamic landscape where advanced technologies, personalised medicine and patient engagement converge to redefine the delivery of services. From AI-driven diagnostics to genomics-based treatments, this future promises a holistic and interconnected approach focused on prevention and individual well-being.
The challenge
Only 10% of patient’s disease therapy is monitored today by doctors, hospitals or insurances. 90% lies in the darkness of the patient’s privacy. Uncontrolled. Unobserved. What is seen as a crucial problem in advancing the future of medicine is not access to accurate real-life data. All patient information is captured in specific time-boxes, and we have no idea how patients behave and what happens in their everyday lives outside of the surveillance of doctors and pharmacists. Currently, there is a black box of information about patients, which is needed in order to truly deliver personalised medicine.
Solution
TOM Medications wants to advance personalised medicine, by building a real-world evidence platform, the «TOM insights» platform. At the core of their technology lies high-quality real-world data, sourced from the TOM app. These patient-generated data undergo rigorous analysis to yield intuitive insights into various aspects of healthcare, including disease progression, patient experiences, medication adherence, disease burden, treatment pathways, treatment effectiveness, and the cost of care.
Recognising the need to capture previously untapped information, they designed the TOM app with a focus on engagement, drawing from feedback from over 20,000 patients. This approach has resulted in a highly engaged patient community, with an app stickiness of up to 71% surpassing even social media giants like Twitter (41%), and comparable to Facebook (66%), and WhatsApp (84%). Patients use TOM as their companion throughout their disease management, resulting in an enormous pool of patient health data over a long period of time.
Through this commitment to gathering and analysing authentic patient experiences, TOM Medications drive healthcare advancements firmly rooted in real patient journeys. This approach paves the way for a personalised approach to healthcare, ultimately reshaping the way care is delivered and experienced.
Impact on the patient
Patients are already benefiting from being able to use the TOM app 100% free of charge and 100% anonymously to manage their disease, leading to more positive treatment outcomes for patients and a higher quality of life. The insights generated from the TOM Insights platform will add to the benefits since it aims to advance developments of more personalised medicine for patients. Thus, patients will get treatment tailored to their needs and improve their health.
Patients’ Testimonies
“Since I’ve been using TOM, I’ve been taking my medication more consciously and consistently! The fact that the app informs me when the medication is almost used up is awesome! I would definitely recommend it!”
“I had recently lost track of when I needed to take which medication and whether I had already taken it. Before I tried TOM, I had tried other medication apps, but I find that TOM has been much more thoughtfully created. It really has thought of everything and it helps me a lot in my everyday life.”
Team
The team of TOM Medications currently counts 12 people, composed of pharmacists, data engineers, software developers, UX designers and business developments. Having such an interdisciplinary team is necessary to bring their vision to life. Apart from their team, they are excited to have their advisory and management board consisting of experts from the healthcare industry and science, successful entrepreneurs, as well important stakeholders, such as Galenica and Sanitas, which are their go-to partners in building a product that really fulfils a current need in the market.
Collaboration & Partnerships
TOM Medications collaborate with a two-digit number of partners from the healthcare sector, be it pharma, insurance, or research institutions. And all these collaborations have the patients’ health improvement in its centre. For instance, they collaborated with Sanitas to create an adherence programme, worked with Galenica and Mediservice to digitalise pharmacy services in the TOM app, and with the Diabetes Center Berne they collaborated in Real-World-Data.
Future vision of healthcare
Their company’s vision is clear: personalised medicine is the future of healthcare, enabling healthcare providers to shift the emphasis in medicine from reaction to prevention. But personalised medicine needs data to do so. And especially (hard to get) patient-generated data to create unique real-world insights. These insights can lead to breakthroughs in treatment strategies, the identification of previously undetected adverse effects, and the development of novel therapies tailored to individual patients’ needs. With more than 200 million patient-generated data already at the heart of the TOM evidence model, they are at the forefront of the transformation of the Swiss healthcare system.
Human-centred and patient-centric design principles strive to put people at the centre of their solutions, particularly with respect to being aligned with their needs in the context of the local healthcare system(s). A majority of the population will not have been involved in the initial design phases of new digital health solutions, yet have an important role to play in refining these solutions – either through direct feedback or simply by letting the companies behind them leverage their user data to improve.
To engage with new solutions, there are often some fundamental prerequisites that enable an integrated user experience. One such enabler is the electronic patient record (EPR), which will become the gateway to many future digital health solutions. The sooner people begin to use their EPR, the sooner we reach a critical mass of people able to access digital services.
Fostering digital health literacy is therefore pivotal. Ensuring the Swiss population, especially the elderly, feels safe, and comfortable navigating these digital technologies is essential. Widespread education in the form of workshops, training programmes, and user-friendly interfaces are imperative to bridge the digital divide, as well as encouraging dialogue between those who have had initial experiences with these solutions and those who are still learning about the benefits and convenience of digital healthcare delivery.
Moreover, collaboration with healthcare professionals is also key. Building trust between patients and digital health providers can be achieved by involving local doctors and nurses in telehealth initiatives. This collaborative approach ensures that patients receive a continuum of care (including all providers from pharmacy to at home nursing by the intermediary of the hospitals) combining the advantages of both digital and traditional healthcare services.
Such collaboration can be initiated by the patients themselves too; this will encourage providers to start or continue their digital transformation initiatives. By engaging with digital health tools, the Swiss population can open the dialogue as to the pros and cons of these technologies, and together address the key questions of data privacy, data ownership and usability.
Adopting new digital health tools when in good health is a good way to become familiar with solutions before they are needed in a care setting. Once onboarded, patients can comfortably benefit from the services they offer such as online information resources, telemedical consultations or opportunities to plan and track diagnostic and therapeutic information in support of care pathways.
Digital health innovation is rarely a short-term journey. While initial (angel) investors and grant funding can help initiatives to get started, the road ahead to patient impact and profitability will be long and complicated due to decisions on which market segments and solutions to prioritise.
Therefore, dilutive and non-dilutive investors must seek long-term impact rather than short-term gains. Correspondingly, innovators must be prepared and equipped to articulate this impact in terms of savings and improvements to different healthcare stakeholders.
The Swiss economy is investing heavily in hardware and software, especially in digital technologies as stated in ETH’s survey (Wörter, 2022). This is particularly the case in the digital health area with an important growth in funding of digital health companies and therefore an increasing number of venture funds entering the sector. In startupticker VC report’s survey, it was identified that more than half of the investors invest in digitalisation topics in the healthcare sector (Swiss Venture Capital Report, 2023).
While this year, 2023, has clearly been challenging in the Venture Capital sector, particularly for those seeking first-time investment, an increasing number of active Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) funds have begun seeking earlier stage investments. CVCs are often in the strategic position of aligning their portfolio companies with their respective corporate strategies, and therefore have an opportunity to seek close integration of innovative solutions through collaboration; both in terms of teams, customers, and data interoperability.
To increase the impact of digital health innovation in Switzerland, a symbiotic relationship between innovators and investors of any kind is crucial. Investors can provide mentorship and resources beyond monetary support, aiding innovators in navigating the complex healthcare stakeholder landscape.
Open interfaces enable other solutions to connect and securely share data via international standards such as HL7 FHIR. Such solutions enable greater scalability as new collaborations can be integrated via these standards. This also results in an imperative for established companies to explore how to enable such data interoperability and move away from siloed data models. Cuore from Swiss Post is just one example of a platform that enables data interoperability (Swiss Post Ltd, 2023).
In this way, innovators have the opportunity to leverage the ecosystem mindset and encourage regional and national initiatives that increase skills and enable technology which is required in key areas such as connectivity of devices within care settings. Identifying solutions that deliver mutual benefits in the realm of digital transformation can provide industry-wide benefits as a positive externality from the implementation of one specific innovation.
In this spirit, there is an imperative to be inquisitive about what is holding back the integration of digital health solutions and ensure even with limited resources that innovators are addressing environmental, social, and governance topics in addition to their technical solutions.
In the coming years, the Swiss regulatory framework around digital health is poised for significant evolution. Public authorities need to set national standards and a clear framework for digital health in Switzerland together with international regulatory bodies and industry stakeholders.
Moreover, beyond setting standards, public authorities also have a role to ensure that different players collaborate within the ecosystem to avoid Swiss citizens being obliged to use multiple disconnected applications and services. The human-centred design principles of the innovators should be considered by policymakers.
Data security and data privacy should be at the forefront of the discussions as it is important to ensure that all solutions follow strict regulations and ensure that the citizens’ data are handled appropriately. The FOPH has launched a group of experts focusing on Data management and standardisation in Switzerland (Federal Office of Public Health – Digisanté, 2023). It is key that all the different digital health solutions, which are developed, are based on the same standards and follow the international FAIR norms. The Swiss Personalised Healthcare Network has made considerable progress on making health data FAIR for secondary usage (SPHN, 2023).
The different health solutions need to use structured interoperable data for the different systems to be able to communicate with one another efficiently. This is the only way possible to ensure that we move away from siloed solutions into ecosystems and networks of solutions that interlink with one another. Like this, each actor will be able to focus on its key added value and bring their own expertise to the healthcare ecosystem.
Furthermore, there should be a concerted collaborative effort to establish clear guidelines and standards for digital health solutions such as telemedicine practices, home monitoring devices, and digital therapeutics. This clarity is essential for both, providers and patients, ensuring that services are safe, reliable, and accessible across the country.
The Swiss healthcare system is ready for digital transformation. Due to its great location and presence of diverse key healthcare partners, Switzerland has all the required tools to grow steadily in the digital health sector. However, this will only be possible if all the different healthcare players – patients, providers and public authorities – collaborate.
Startups and scaleups are a very important part of the innovation process of healthcare in Switzerland, and they will continue to play an even greater role in the upcoming future as thought leaders of our evolving digital health ecosystem.
Empowering Swiss citizens to better understand and own their health data as well as better navigate their health journey are critical to ensure equal access to digital health knowledge and positive patient outcomes for the population. Digital health solutions, such as the ones who took part in digitalswitzerland and Swiss Healthcare Startups’ Digital Health Academy 2023, are the innovators of today and tomorrow; they are the new digital health players who will enable us to achieve the next steps of digitalising the healthcare system in Switzerland by working together with the patients and other healthcare actors.
In the future, citizens should become an even stronger partner in designing and testing digital health solutions to ensure their needs are met. Innovators and investors will need to partner up to ensure that long-term impactful and interoperable solutions thrive in the healthcare ecosystem.
This is a collaborative publication between the different scaleups from the Digital Health academy and digitalswitzerland’s team.
Authors:
Romain Boichat, Co-founder and COO, Soignez-moi
Redona Hafizi, Co-founder and Head of Pharma, TOM Medications
Maria Scoz, Healthcare and Life Sciences Business Developer, Decentriq
Phil Norris, Senior Manager Scaleup Enablement, digitalswitzerland
Regula Spuehler, Co-founder and COO, heyPatient
Jade Sternberg, Senior Project Lead Digital Health, digitalswitzerland
Supported by:
Diana Hardie, CEO of Swiss Healthcare Startups
Susanne Gedamke, Managing Director, Swiss Patient Organisation
Milan Vopalka, Head Healthcare, Public Sector Switzerland , Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Theodor Wilhelm, Head of Strategy and Business Development and Member of the Executive Board, Post Sanela Health AG
About the Digital Health Academy:
In collaboration with Swiss Healthcare Startups, digitalswitzerland launched the first edition of the Digital Health Academy, a 6-month cohort based programme for scaleups working to empower the patients to own and understand their health data better. Decentriq, heyPatient, Soignez-moi and TOM Medications were part of the 2023 cohort and, through this academy, were positioned as thought leaders in the digital health space. As part of the programme, they were mentored by experts, benefited from in-depth workshops, a matchmaking bootcamp with corporates and the chance to join ecosystem events such as Digital Health Day (Zurich) and AI for Life (Geneva).
About digitalswitzerland:
digitalswitzerland is a nationwide, cross-sector initiative that aims to transform Switzerland into a leading digital nation. Under the umbrella of digitalswitzerland more than 200 organisations, consisting of association members and politically neutral foundation partners, are working together to achieve this goal. digitalswitzerland is the point of contact for all questions relating to digitalisation and is committed to solving a wide range of challenges. Learn more about digitalswitzerland.
The Swiss healthcare system: entering a new digital era.
A visualisation of the pioneering solutions that inspire a digital health ecosystem” is published!
Zurich, 13 December 2023
Although great care has been taken in the preparation of this publication, the author and contributors involved are not responsible for the accuracy of the data, information and advice provided, nor for any printing errors.
All rights reserved, including translation into other languages. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transcribed and/or translated into any computer language, including any information processing language, in any form without the prior written permission of the authors.
The rights to the trademarks mentioned remain with their respective owners.
Coordination of the publication: Melanie Holenweger and Jade Sternberg (digitalswitzerland)
Graphic design: Nina Holenstein (www.niniparati.com)
Study on the cybersecurity of Swiss internet users in 2023
A representative survey of over 1,200 people in Switzerland between August and September provided important insights into attitudes and behaviour towards cyber risks. The study shows that hacking and cyberattacks are becoming increasingly clever and frequent. The average household already has seven devices connected online that are potential targets, and this number is expected to rise. Employers play an important role in raising awareness, but this measure does not reach the most affected age group (65+) sufficiently. This group tends to rely on traditional media and their personal environment. Although 86% of respondents feel safe online and 68% rate their skills as good, 31% use the same password for almost all online services. The most common consequences of cyberattacks are financial losses, data loss and violations of personal rights.
The survey was carried out on behalf of the Swiss Mobiliar Insurance Company Ltd, digitalswitzerland, Allianz Digitale Sicherheit Schweiz, the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland FHNW – Digital Transformation Competence Centre, the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences SATW and Swiss Internet Security Alliance (SISA).
Read the study in German.
Read the press release in German, French and Italian.
Read the press conference presentation in German.
To download the infographics of the study, please navigate to internet-sicherheit.ch.
In partnership with BILANZ Wirtschaftsmagazin, HANDELSZEITUNG and PME, and supported by Innosuisse, digitalswitzerland is once again celebrating the 100 people changing the face of the Swiss digital landscape. Read the full interviews with all 100 Digital Shapers in the dedicated Bilanz issue.
We are pleased to introduce Digital Shapers 2023, a group of dedicated innovators who are committed to shaping a digital future that empowers us all. Their tireless efforts and passion serve as a driving force, inspiring their peers to redefine the limits of what is possible. We are delighted to support this annual campaign. We seized the opportunity to learn what drives these visionaries and are pleased to present some of the deserving winners!
Auréline and her team at Open Forest Protocol have developed scalable, open and transparent monitoring and financing tools to massively scale the restoration of nature and forests especially. These tools are, for instance, now being used by organisations and landowners in the Global South. Some of these landowners used to have no other choice than to deforest their land to get revenue. With Open Forest Protocol, they now have access to an alternative revenue stream based on reforestation and forest protection.
Q: What are you most excited about for digital innovation in 2023 and beyond?
A: “I’m genuinely excited about the potential of digital innovations such as remote sensing, AI, and blockchain in addressing climate change. These technologies offer game-changing transparency and can ensure that funds are directed efficiently to essential nature-based climate initiatives. By meticulously tracking progress and validating results, we are able to ensure utmost accountability and effectiveness. As our planet faces critical challenges, it’s really imperative that we leverage these innovations to scale our efforts, steering us towards a much needed, more sustainable and resilient world.”
Q: What will be the biggest change in the world of digital and the way you work in the next 10 years?
A: “I think in the next 10 years, we’ll see a lot of pressure on humans to use digital innovation and tools to always become more efficient. Hopefully, we’ll be able to remember the irreplaceable value of physical interactions between us and how creative and skilled at problem-solving we are when we work together. I truly believe that balancing the efficiency of digital innovations with the nuances of human interaction will be key to creating a holistic, productive, and fulfilling work environment for us all.”
Péter completed his PhD in robotics in 2017, alongside co-founding ANYbotics. Through various roles, including now leading at the front as CEO, Peter is driving impact on a global scale at ANYbotics.
Q: Where do you think Switzerland can make the most impact on the digital innovation stage?
A: “Switzerland’s unique strength lies in blending its history of precision engineering with a strong push in software & AI, backed by our leading universities. This combination creates an ideal environment to transform AI into tangible products, like robotics, addressing pressing global challenges such as workforce shortages and sustainable production.”
Q: What will be the biggest change in the world of digital and the way you work in the next 10 years?
A: “In the next 10 years, the most significant change will be how seamlessly we can interact with and use machines, all thanks to AI. It will be a huge shift, similar to the transition from typewriters to computers.”
As the CEO of Swissnex in San Francisco, Emilia Pasquier supports Swiss innovators, startups, artists, and academia in exploring or entering the US market by connecting them to key players in the San Francisco Bay Area. With a team of over ten Swiss and American professionals, her overarching goal is to connect Switzerland and the world in education, research, and innovation. Pasquier’s focus is to strengthen Switzerland’s position as a world-leading hotspot of innovation.
Q: If you could give your 16-year-old self one piece of advice (career or life), what would it be?
A: “If I could advise my 16-year-old self, I’d say: be wild, rebellious, and audacious. Embrace the uncharted paths, and don’t fear failure. The unconventional roads often lead to the most extraordinary destinations. Challenge the norms, strive for innovation, and don’t be afraid to step outside your comfort zone, as pushing the boundaries very seldom happens from within them. In both life and career, it’s these qualities that inspire change and drive success.”
Q: Where do you think Switzerland can make the most impact on the digital innovation stage?
A: “Switzerland has the potential to make a profound impact on the digital innovation stage, particularly in the area of health, where we have established considerable knowledge through small and big corporates and are amongst the global leaders. Moreover, Switzerland can impact the space by becoming an international platform for crucial discussions around the ethical use of AI. Building upon the legacy of international Geneva, we can lead dialogues that shape responsible AI governance, thereby ensuring that technology evolves in harmony with human values and global standards.”
Silvio Bonaccio is one of Switzerland’s most influential people in generating spin-offs. He has led the ETH technology transfer for nearly two decades – spinning off countless companies and encouraging a generation of entrepreneurs.
Q: Where do you think Switzerland can make the most impact on the digital innovation stage?
A: “In Switzerland in general and at ETH Zurich in particular, one finds world leading centres and institutes in many areas, such as information security and privacy, robotics/autonomous systems, AI, visual computing, quantum computing, etc. to name just a few. We are very well positioned in terms of technology. What we need to provide are efficient platforms and support structures to allow for a fast development and a short time-to-market. Then our country will continue to have an impact on the digital innovation stage in various fields.”
Q: What will be the biggest change in the world of digital and the way you work in the next 10 years?A: “The future of augmented reality (AR) changes the way we interact with the digital world and merges the virtual elements with our physical surroundings. This innovation will permeate all areas of life. Already today, our researchers at ETH Zurich are developing products like context-aware AR support for complex operator tasks, hand action prediction or visualisation strategies.”
Pushing technological boundaries is in Carla’s blood. Together with her team at KORE Technologies AG, she operates ISO certified blockchain solutions at scale for large corporates like Richemont Group on a global scale. Her company certainly finds solutions for tough problems. Moreover, Carla is an inspirational speaker and motivates people to move into entrepreneurship and tech.
Q: What are you most excited about for digital innovation in 2023 and beyond?
A: “AI and machine learning will revolutionise industries by automating tasks, uncovering insights from vast data amounts that we can not analyse yet and by enabling personalised experiences. This will accelerate innovation in a massive way. This technology holds immense potential to optimise processes, enhance decision-making, and address complex challenges across various domains, transforming the way we work, live, and interact. It’s not just the next buzzword but a deeply impactful development in humanity.”
Q: If you could give your 16-year old self one piece of advice (career or life), what would it be?
A: “Embrace continuous learning in IT. The digital landscape evolves rapidly; stay curious and adaptable. I’d stress the importance of learning coding and computational thinking as well as cybersecurity basics and data analytics. However, what will be important in addition is everything that technology can’t provide: soft skills. The most important being a critical mind to analyse the validity of sources, the ability to take decisions and focus, creative and networked thinking, the skill to express yourself as well as relate, interact and negotiate with one’s environment.”
Judith is a mobility expert. She sits on the Advisory Board at the Institute for Mobility at the University of St.Gallen and is Co-Founder of Urban Connect. First as CEO and now as COO, she is finding digital solutions for physical problems.
Q: Where do you think Switzerland can make the most impact on the digital innovation stage?
A: “I think an area that is often overlooked is mobility. And I think Switzerland is uniquely qualified to serve as a laboratory to systematically test new mobility concepts by virtue of its small size, diverse landscape, efficient public transport system, its dense network of roads and railways, its advanced level of digitalisation, and its progressive and pragmatic regulatory approach. So, in short, I think concepts can be tested here before being rolled out systemically in bigger countries with a big impact.”
Q: If you could give your 16-year-old self one piece of advice (career or life), what would it be?
A: “I would tell her to stop trying to fit in and instead approach life with a sense of curiosity, wonder and gratitude. I would tell her that failure is part of progress and no one’s opinion about her should ever matter more than her own. I would tell her that the brain works like a muscle and that she should take on challenges, seek out new experiences and hang out with people that talk about ideas and not about people.”
Matthias has a long history in healthcare digitalisation, including at KS Winterthur and recently at Inselspital Bern. Today, he is driving patient centric collaboration with heyPatient together with his Co-Founder, Regula Spühler.
Q: What are you most excited about for digital innovation in 2023 and beyond?
A: “We’re excited about elevating quality of life with the help of digitally enhanced healthcare systems, transitioning from a sickcare model to a true healthcare paradigm.”
Q: What will be the biggest change in the world of digital and the way you work in the next 10 years?
A: “Digital augmentation will enable a worldwide enhancement to unfold: We will experience healthier environments, better living, and increased equality. In healthcare, new technologies like the digital twin or AI catalyse transformative progress. We will become much more aware of our own health, what we need for our well-being and have information at hand to take an informed decision when it comes to lifestyle changes or starting a medical treatment.”
Vanessa Foser is a founder, entrepreneur and board member with a special focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data in combination with innovation, impact and leadership. She supports leading Swiss companies, as well as public institutions, to empower their people on how to make practical use of AI in their daily jobs. Vanessa is also engaged in supporting less privileged people in various countries in getting access to first-class AI education for free, with a special focus on inclusion and diversity.
Q: What are you most excited about for digital innovation in 2023 and beyond?
A: “As an AI-enthusiast/ -pioneer, I am most excited that 2023 stands as the pivotal year when AI’s potential is fully harnessed, driving unprecedented digital progress and revolutionising how we work, communicate, and experience the world. (Generative) AI and digital innovation have converged to define a transformative era. Rapid advancements in machine learning, automation, and data analytics are reshaping industries and everyday life. AI-powered solutions enhance efficiency, personalisation, and problem-solving across all sectors and functions.”
Q: What will be the biggest change in the world of digital and the way you work in the next 10 years?
A: “The next decade will witness a paradigm-shift in the digital world and the way we work. Generative AI-technologies will play a pivotal role in automating even creative and sophisticated tasks, freeing professionals for innovation. The real change lies in our evolving relationship with AI, demanding a culture of digital literacy, encouraging individuals to critically assess the outputs of AI-systems and to intervene when necessary. This synergy ensures AI enhances human capacity, leading to a harmonious coexistence where collective progress thrives.”
Sven is the Co-Founder and CEO of TOM Medications and has managed to build the fastest growing active community of patients with chronic diseases in Europe in a very short time.
Q: Where do you think Switzerland can make the most impact on the digital innovation stage?
A: “The future of personalised medicine needs data. Switzerland, with its excellence in pharmacy and medical research, is poised to redefine digital innovation in personalised medicine. By integrating data from different health areas and individual health histories, we can gain unparalleled insights. It is critical to disaggregate and share this data, while always respecting regulatory standards, to advance research and care together. This collaborative approach will not only put Switzerland at the forefront of innovation, but also ensure outcomes that benefit individuals.”
Öykü Işık leads IMD’s Cybersecurity for Managers programme and is an expert on digital resilience and the ways in which disruptive technologies challenge our society and organisations. She helps businesses to tackle cybersecurity, data privacy, and digital ethics challenges, and enables CEOs and other executives to understand these issues, which she believes are too important to be left to technical specialists alone.
Q: Where do you think Switzerland can make the most impact on the digital innovation stage?
A: “I did my PhD in the US because I wanted an international experience, and American universities have that inviting culture that says ‘research’, ‘innovation’ and ‘international collaboration’. But these three years in Switzerland have made me think: ‘why didn’t I come here instead?’ This country is home to a vibrant academic community and, more importantly, a culture of hands-on innovation. It’s clear why it’s a fertile ground for AI and cybersecurity startups.”
Q: What will be the biggest change in the world of digital and the way you work in the next 10 years?
A: I think we’ll have amazing innovations enabled by machine learning and we’re likely to see productivity gains from AI, but I don’t think these necessarily will have a positive impact on our quality of life; I am afraid it won’t make us less overworked. The other aspect is surveillance economy, with social media and data collection: I’m hopeful that the increasing awareness of each new generation, coupled with global regulations, will make the challenge of data privacy better.
Katka has been involved in innovation projects connected to acceleration and startup development in the USA, Asia and Europe. She was one member of the founding team of Kickstart and since then has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs to grow and startups to scale up within the Kickstart programmes.
Q: Where do you think Switzerland can make the most impact on the digital innovation stage?
A: “I believe that the impact will be driven by topics of deep tech and circular economy as well as artificial intelligence, digital personalised health, robotics, advanced manufacturing, and blockchain – all mentioned technologies are coming out in Switzerland and will influence the productivity and competitiveness of the country.”
Q: What will be the biggest change in the world of digital and the way you work in the next 10 years?
A: “I believe that as we see a shift of co-existing in a hybrid environment, we will see even more data-driven and highly personalised digital experiences that enhance the way how we can see things and make decisions about customer journeys for better engagement and lifetime. That said, solutions that will continue to break silos and support collaboration will still make a big impact.”
Find out more about the jury behind selecting our deserving winners here.
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With the strategy 2025 defined at the beginning of 2022, we laid the ground for a major transformation – aiming at impact in society in clearly defined areas of action. At the same time, the team is focusing on creating visibility for the digitalswitzerland ecosystem and improving interactions with our community of 200+ Association members and non-political Foundation partners. The new strategy also created new and additional member benefits that reinforce the relevance of digitalswitzerland as a horizontal movement. Our plans include regional community events, a new hub concept for WEF 2024, an exclusive virtual platform for members for coordination and inspiration, and events dedicated to female leaders to engage and champion more women in management positions. In 2023, we are renewing our focus on our Western Switzerland (Romandie) chapter with the addition of a dedicated Lead based in the region. We are also excited to intensify our efforts in internationalisation. Together with the Swiss Digital Initiative (SDI), digitalswitzerland has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with SGTech in Singapore. This partnership is proof of our shared commitment to driving digital transformation forward across borders and using synergies between nations.
The importance of education and the need for continuous learning increases in the digital age. In 2022 the team nurtured collaborations with other educational organisations to support Switzerland’s education transformation for the digital future. The close cooperation with ICT Berufsbildung Schweiz is being increased through joint activities in the fields of lifelong learning. Another such successful collaboration is the one with Pro Juventute for the Future Skills Campaign. The awareness building campaign was finalised with the release of 12 videos featuring role models and young adults from different STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields. The overall campaign achieved an impressive 200,000 interactions.
Our goal is to address and raise awareness for education at all stages in life. This was illustrated by the continuation and completion of the Lifelong Learning Documentary Series – a campaign featuring digitalswitzerland members talking about their experiences and activities in respect to lifelong learning.
With the continuation of the successful Boost Programme, the team showcased how simple and unbureaucratic lifelong learning can be. By the end of 2022, already more than 300 people were supported with a financial contribution to an upskilling course to navigate and thrive in the digital economy. The programme was generously supported by UBS.
Recognising the value of experienced professionals in the ICT sector, digitalswitzerland joined the Initiative focus50Plus to actively work on solutions for the 50+ workforce in light of the skills shortage. These professionals are a valuable source for the sector and can help fill the current skills gap.
To support STEM Initiatives in Switzerland, we launched the Planet MINT network (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) in September 2022. The network gatherings have already shown impact, as they resulted in the initiation of a whitepaper on gender sensitive STEM that was published in January 2023.
To ensure that the Swiss population keeps up with the developments of the digital present and future, engaging and including everyone is vital. The Swiss Digital Days fulfilled this purpose. For this edition, the event was extended into a nation-wide campaign. Swiss Digital Days 2022 offered the Swiss population the opportunity for exchange, discussion, and access to more than 350 events on the topic of digitalisation. During seven weeks, digitalswitzerland in collaboration with its partners successfully organised a series of local events in seven regions of Switzerland. The Swiss population joined our team in the physical bubbles, attended online events, and experienced the digital future. Within the swissp[AI]nt project, visitors of Swiss Digital Days created thousands of digital artworks about Switzerland and digitalisation with the help of advanced artificial intelligence. Selected artworks will be turned into crypto stamps as part of the Swiss Crypto Stamp 3.0 editions, released in 2023 by the Swiss Post.
Talented Startups across Switzerland participated and competed in the GreenTech Startup Battle. A competition showcasing startups from across Switzerland with innovative and sustainable technologies and solutions. These entrepreneurs show a deep commitment to change and are working to create solutions that enable us to live, work and innovate more sustainably. The winner of the pitch duel at the Swiss Digital Days closing event was Viboo, an Empa spin-off that creates cloud software solutions to reduce the energy consumption of buildings.
We have made it a priority to foster female talents in the ICT field. With #herHACK – the largest female led-hackathon in Switzerland – 250 women with different backgrounds across all Swiss regions came together. Their task: Solving pressing challenges and developing solutions in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN Agenda 2030. With #herHACK, we create an environment to inspire women and non-binary people to work in the technology industry and allow them to create a network of like-minded professionals.
Involving the youth is crucial for the digital Switzerland waiting for us. NextGen Future Skills Labs, one of the main format events during Swiss Digital Days 2022, has done exactly that. 186 children aged 10 to 15 from across Switzerland participated in the NextGen Future Skills Labs. In specially designed workshops, the children were able to learn about digital technologies and innovative methods and thus discover and develop their future skills. Skills that are not only crucial in business, but also in a personal digital future.
The Digital Health initiative was boosted in 2022 after a WEF panel discussion on the digitalisation of healthcare and multiple exchanges with experts in the field (private and public). With this initiative, we pursue the ambitious goal of creating the support needed for digitalising the entire healthcare system in Switzerland and making it patient-centric. Digital health has the potential to revolutionise healthcare for patients by improving access, efficiency and outcomes while reducing costs and improving the patient experience.
As a driving orchestrator, digitalswitzerland brings together key players representing all aspects of the healthcare ecosystem: the patients, hospitals, insurance companies, the pharma industry, medtech, the government and more. We need the inclusiveness for success. United with a common goal, they collaborated and supported the team to kick off and shape the Digital Health initiative, reaching two key milestones in 2022: A population survey to better understand the needs and fears of the digitalisation of the healthcare system and a Swiss patient ecosystem map to illustrate all the existing digital solutions which enable an enhanced patient journey. Based on the results of the survey and with the involvement of multiple members who are experts in the field, the study “A Swiss digital healthcare system: What the population thinks” was published. Furthermore, the Swiss Patient Ecosystem Map represents the different existing solutions and initiatives in Switzerland to provide the ecosystem with more clarity and help to identify synergies and gaps.
2022 has surely been a year of new beginnings for Infrastructure & Cybersecurity. After the “no” vote to the proposed E-ID law in 2021, the team worked to support the government with its new approach, considering the feedback from Swiss citizens and developing a more pragmatic approach with the goal to create more acceptance; we were therefore leveraging our broad network of expertise and members to propose solutions and initiatives. 10 members actively contributed to the keystone whitepaper to propose a new E-ID solution based on an ecosystem of verifiable credentials and self sovereign identity principles.
On the cybersecurity front, in 2022 our involvement has led to the launch of the CyberSeal managed by the “Allianz Digitale Schweiz”. digitalswitzerland was also present at the Swiss Cyber Security Days as well as supported the growth of the SME cyber check by Cybero. Last but certainly not least, digitalswitzerland orchestrated discussions with the goal to enable the required framework and conditions for a Swiss Data Space Ecosystem to develop. For this purpose, digitalswitzerland has also been upkeeping international coordination efforts with the industry-led, transnational data ecosystem initiative Gaia-X.
At digitalswitzerland, we build on digital solutions paving the way for a sustainable future and as a driver for accelerating sustainable innovation. This is why we create new digital and sustainable lighthouses and support initiatives that lead the way.
The kick-off for the carbon data project WISER happened in a large consortium of both academic and implementation partners. The idea of WISER is to simplify the implementation, reliability and comparison of greenhouse gas assessments with a sophisticated digital ecosystem. The idea is supported as one of the few flagship projects from Innosuisse. Development of the backend of WISER began in 2022 and the team started preparing to position the tool as a valuable contributor for businesses climate strategies.
The team kicked off 2022 with a large-scale event co-organised with the Capital Market Technology Association to strengthen the relationship between Western and Eastern Switzerland in the DLT space. This event brought together 70 C-levels and experts in Zurich. To make Switzerland a leading DLT-hub, accessibility is key. Thus, we created a dedicated 4T-DLT website where the community can access all blueprints in one location and is able to actively share its own contributions. The site serves perfectly as a collaborative platform (add your own events, blueprints, definitions and join the forum to exchange). A LinkedIn group to enable easy access to content for experts and stakeholders interested in DLT complements the community-focused offer.
The Startups and International programme was renamed to Scaleup Enablement in 2022 to reflect the initiatives and endeavours of the programme more accurately. 2022 was a vibrant year for Switzerland’s startup ecosystem, demonstrating resilience in all areas. Notably strong growth could be observed in sustainability startups, and capital invested into ICT companies up by over 70%.
Our flagship event in Bern, Startup Days, was once again a celebration of Swiss innovation and engaged many members and partners, not least through the General Assembly that runs concurrently with the event.
Scaleup Bootcamps ran throughout the year together with VentureLab and the Gerbert Rüf Stiftung, providing thematic matchmaking between corporates and startups. Industries included Foodtech, Smart Manufacturing, Fintech & Insurtech, Enterprise Tech & Cybersecurity, Life Science, Digital Health, Cleantech & Circular Economy, and Smart City & Mobility.
Under the SwissTech umbrella, the team took 17 spin-offs, startups and scaleups to GITEX Global in Dubai, accompanied by a delegation of members and Women In Tech Switzerland. As a gateway to the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, this was important to showcase the strength of the Swiss ICT sector and an opportunity to gain inspiration from their local crypto valley.
The team was pleased to support Swisspreneur in the Scaleup Slopes, bringing together various players across startups, scaleups, corporates, and investors. We also supported the Swiss Startup Radar and Swiss Venture Capital Report, two important reports for highlighting the strength of our startup ecosystem.
In partnership with Bilanz, Handelszeitung and PME, digitialswitzerland was once again celebrating the 100 people changing the face of the Swiss digital landscape – Digital Shapers 2022. Their continued efforts and commitment inspires and brings those around them on a journey to challenge what’s possible.
At the beginning of 2022, the team welcomed Dominique Reber as the new Head of B2G (Business to government). In 2022, the newly formed Public Affairs team hosted three events with parliamentarians, including an event co-hosted with ePower on Cybersecurity vs Independence. The other two events were centred around Swiss Digital Days and the topic of Energy and Digitalisation.
In December 2022, digitalswitzerland submitted a list of 17 lighthouse projects for potential funding under EMBAG’s article 17 (Federal Act on the Use of Electronic Means for the Performance of Official Duties), which foresees federal funding via private-public partnerships for digital transformation projects.
In a very open and constructive process, we contributed to the development of the Digital Strategy of Switzerland and supported the Federal Chancellery in creating visibility for this important guidance for our country. We are fully supportive of this strategy of Switzerland and it is very much in line with the priorities that are guiding digitalswitzerland.
We renewed our commitment to the regions beyond Central Switzerland and Ticino. This is why in July 2022, we agreed on a strategic collaboration with the Economic Chamber of Biel-Seeland to increase our presence in this region. Further, Anthony Corbaz has been appointed to lead and expand activities in Western Switzerland, starting in 2023.
The commitment of diverse actors within Central Switzerland for a joint regional initiative, with digitalswitzerland acting as the orchestrating organisation, was further strengthened. In particular, the Canton of Lucerne has been won as an active supporter who provides significant seed funding for local, impact-oriented activities. Following its launch in 2021, the “DigitalTag Zentralschweiz 2022”, which took place in the Swiss Museum of Transport, was further established as the flagship event for digitalisation in Central Switzerland. The “DigitalTag Zentralschweiz 2022” further served as a starting point for initial talks between the Swiss Museum of Transport and digitalswitzerland for a joint collaboration regarding the development of a “House of Digital Switzerland.”
In 2022, digitalswitzerland held the “AI Round Table” in cooperation with the Locarno Film Festival and hosted Swiss Digital Days in Bellinzona and Lugano. The event in Lugano was very successful in particular and the team was able to welcome many interested people as well as a public figure with Christa Rigozzi.
To widen the network and to attract new members, the team collaborated with the Lifestyle Tech Competence Centre in Lugano on networking events. The Lifestyle Innovation Day in April 2022 was one such occasion, which brought over 1000 visitors to Lugano to talk about innovation in fashion, food and life in general.
digitalswitzerland consists of 200+ Association members and non-political Foundation partners. The Association and Foundation continued to collaborate closely in pursuit of strengthening digitalisation in Switzerland.
2022 marks the first operational year of the digitalswitzerland Foundation. The creation and implementation of the Digital Xchange format to foster bottom-up dialogue with the population and discuss the impact of digitalisation on society stands out in the efforts of 2022. Within this format, the team interviewed a wide spectrum of experts and keyholders, organised four public focus groups with more than a hundred participants of all ages and backgrounds. Further, the 1st edition of the Digital Xchange Forum in September 2022 convening over 50 leaders and representatives of very diverse stakeholders to address digital inclusion in Switzerland was held.
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digitalswitzerland
Selnaustrasse 25
8001 Zurich
digitalswitzerland Foundation
c/o EPFL
Station 14, Bâtiment INF, 131
1015 Lausanne
digitalswitzerland
Waisenhausplatz 14
3011 Bern
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