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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)
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.
Digitalisation of the healthcare system is an important topic in Switzerland. Many actors have developed new solutions and initiatives to support this ambitious goal. Because of this, it is hard to keep track of all activities and what they focus on.
That’s why we have created an ecosystem map to illustrate the different digital solutions focussing on enhancing the digital patient journey and the digitalisation of the healthcare system in Switzerland.
This map will help you to better understand the complexity of the ecosystem, find synergies between different organisations, enhance collaboration and identify existing gaps.
New edition of the Ecosystem Map | Q1 2024
The list is not exhaustive; if a solution or initiative is missing or if you want to give feedback, please email jade@digitalswitzerland.com.
To better understand the categories of the map and to navigate easily, please see below:
We will update this map every quarter.
Are you interested to read more about digital health topics? Explore findings from our recent study: “The digital healthcare system from the perspective of the population.”
Map Archive
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)
digitalswitzerland is partnering with the Association Swiss Health Data Space to test the current digital healthcare infrastructure in Switzerland and enable citizens to gain valuable information on their health and thus, take control of it. By participating in this initiative, citizens and healthcare professionals will experience the benefits of the digital side of the healthcare system. They will also identify what is required to improve it through secure and effective use of structured health data with a human-centred focus.
In the 20th century, highly motivated astronauts went through intensive preparatory training to explore space. They showed great willingness to take risks and challenge themselves. What does this have to do with digital health, you might ask? We are looking for pioneers willing to explore the health data space to request and store their own health data. We encourage citizens and healthcare professionals to participate actively by testing and improving the digital healthcare infrastructure themselves – it’s only with the direct involvement of the people that we can ensure that the human is placed at the core of the system.
This so-called “expedition into the health data space” is looking for two types of stakeholders for a rapid digital transformation of the healthcare infrastructure:
Embarking on this expedition as a Salutonaut, you will play an active role and gain much information on your own health. You will do this by:
The costs to become a Salutonaut are 500 CHF. This includes the medical checkup fee as well as the membership fee for the Swiss Health Data Space association.
By becoming an active member of this expedition, you will experience the different health tools, test the current solutions, identify their advantages and help formulate the important regulatory and technical requirements, which are currently lacking to bring the healthcare infrastructure to the next level: a human-centred digital health data space.
This opportunity offers a unique experience to obtain medical history to access new health services for yourself and share it with your family. You will be able to better understand and take control of your health data and make a difference alongside other pioneers.
digitalswitzerland’s Digital Health team is joining the expedition to lead by example and push the barriers of the healthcare system in Switzerland!
Are you interested to join the initiative?
Find additional information about our various activities on our Digital Health programme page.
The Association Swiss Health Data Space creates the legal, technical, economical and organisational conditions necessary for operating a people-centred health data space for the entire of Switzerland and to provide knowledge transfer to promote transparency, acceptance and trust. The association builds on existing solutions and wants to create the right conditions for the future solutions to meet the key technical and functional requirements. The health data spaces which are promoted are compatible with the European Health Data Space.
In partnership with Swiss Healthcare Startups, digitalswitzerland launched the Digital Health Academy, a 6-month programme, for scaleups that empower the Swiss population to own and understand their healthcare data. During this period, the scaleups are mentored by experts in the field, participate in workshops, speak at events and much more.
digitalswitzerland was significantly involved in the consultation of the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) which was recently submitted. The digitalswitzerland Digital Health and Public Affairs Teams with their corresponding Committees of experts were working on a united response to the consultation which has recently been submitted (October 2023).
We have created an ecosystem map to illustrate the different digital solutions and initiatives, which focus on enhancing the digital patient journey and the digitalisation of the healthcare system in Switzerland. We will update the content every quarter.
We highly value the opinion of the population and therefore worked with our partner gfs zürich on a population survey to better understand the needs and fears of the Swiss citizens towards the digitalisation of the healthcare system. We subsequently published a study “A Swiss digital healthcare system: What the population thinks” to showcase the results of the survey to the wider ecosystem.
digitalswitzerland collaborates with our Community Partner Association Swiss Health Data Space to improve healthcare in Switzerland through secure and effective use of structured health data with a human-centred focus. Through an expedition into the Swiss health data space, pioneers test the current digital healthcare infrastructure, gain precious information about their health data, take control of it and actively help shape the health data space.
Our Community Partner Swiss Healthcare Startups provides invaluable in-kind support to our Digital Health initiative. We are collaborating with SHS on the Digital Health Academy and on enabling the development of new digital health solutions in Switzerland.
Our Community Partner DayOne Basel provides invaluable in-kind support to our Digital Health initiative. digitalswitzerland collaborates with Day One on their Health Hack, the first patient-centric health hack and is part of Digital Health Nations Innobooster’s consortium and expert panel to transform healthcare together.
The WEF22 breakfast of digitalswitzerland took place at the ETH Pavilion in Davos to discuss the topic of digital health. 50 C-levels came together to exchange on this important topic. Only with a collaborative approach of all stakeholders in the healthcare sector can a common national vision for the successful digitalisation of healthcare be defined. Anne Lévy (Director of FOPH), Philomena Colatrella (CEO of CSS), Dr Christoph Franz (Chairman of the Board of Directors of Roche) and Dr. Conrad E. Müller (President of Pro UKBB Foundation) were present on stage.
In mid-October 2023, digitalswitzerland hosted the second webinar of its Community Talks. This session delved into the crucial topic of data interoperability in healthcare, featuring three panellists representing organisations from digitalswitzerland’s Swiss Patient Journey Ecosystem Map: Oksana Bober, Co-Founder and CEO of iCure, Serge Bignens, President of MIDATA and Head of the Institute for Medical Informatics at the University of Applied Sciences Bern and Gilles Lunzenfichter, Co-Founder and CEO of Medisanté.
digitalswitzerland is committed to digitalising the entire Swiss healthcare system, placing the patient at the centre of the transformation. The Ecosystem Map serves as a guide, illustrating digital solutions in Switzerland dedicated to the patient journey and healthcare system. The map is segmented into five categories and our webinar focused on one of these categories, «data interoperability».
During the discussion, the panellists explored the challenges and potential solutions related to achieving data interoperability in healthcare.
The importance of data interoperability in healthcare cannot be stressed enough. It has the potential to significantly enhance patient care and coordination among healthcare providers. When data becomes interoperable, this supports medical research, ensures regulatory compliance, and reduces costs, all while empowering patients to have greater control over their health information. Data interoperability is a critical element in the modernisation and optimisation of healthcare systems.
For Gilles Lunzenfichter data interoperability is achieved when «data flows like a river, seamlessly and securely from source to an intended destination». This involves the capacity to reuse data within a single system for various purposes and to transfer it between different platforms. Oksana Bober emphasised that «achieving medical data interoperability is a joint effort that encompasses technology as the foundational layer; regulatory aspects, risk management, and organisational adoption and change management as subsequent layers».
The panellists discussed challenges related to standardisation efforts and reimbursement issues. They concurred that while standards exist, many solutions tend to customise these standards, complicating efforts to achieve interoperability. Moreover, the costs of implementing data interoperability often fall on parties that do not directly benefit from it. The primary beneficiaries tend to be downstream entities, leaving little to no incentives for those implementing interoperability. An example might be that the IT department of a hospital needs to invest to streamline its digital infrastructure. In the long run, it is mainly the patients or the doctors who will benefit from this investment, as the data will be better structured.
To move forward and realise data interoperability, it must be considered as a collaborative effort across the ecosystem. Incentivisation is a key factor for faster adoption and efforts should focus on rewarding pioneers who take initiative. Community-based business models and incentives should be developed and promoted. «It’s essential to transition from isolated pilot projects to broader-scale initiatives», Gilles Lunzenfichter states, drawing inspiration from successful use cases in countries like Belgium, Sweden, Germany, France and the US, where incentivisation techniques have been effective. For instance, in Belgium, doctors who share data from their devices with the national eHealth system receive financial rewards. In general, a collective vision should unite all IT stakeholders, extending beyond data interoperability, recognising it as just one aspect of the whole healthcare experience.
To conclude the discussion, the panellists shared their visions for the Swiss healthcare system in 2050:
In summary, achieving data interoperability in healthcare holds immense potential for improving patient care and the healthcare ecosystem as a whole. To realise this, it’s crucial to address challenges, incentivise stakeholders, and work together to build a healthcare system that is patient-centric and data-driven.
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