Switzerland’s healthcare system is globally renowned. It leads the world on metrics such as infrastructure, medical advances, and patient freedom to choose healthcare services, and ranks 1st in US thinktank FREOPP’s 2022 World Index of Healthcare Innovation. However, it lags in one key area: digitalisation. On that front, Switzerland has more in common with poorer southern European nations like Bulgaria and Romania than global leaders such as Denmark and Finland. An absence of digital transformation leadership compounded by a fragmented political system and a populace suspicious of giving up their health data has led to years of inaction, which has had knock-on effects on the quality, speed, and cost of care in the country, also threatening Switzerland’s status as a research and development hub. Can a new Federal digitalisation initiative set to be implemented from 2025 finally break through?
Falling Behind & Missing Out
The scale of the task is stark, with electronic patient records – a given in most European countries – still not fully implemented after almost a decade and a half of piecemeal reform and a real lack of interoperability between the data generated by different institutions. “Frankly, it’s deeply frustrating to see how far Switzerland has fallen behind in healthcare digitalisation. We’re not just slightly behind; we’re vastly outpaced by countries such as Finland, Estonia, and several others within and beyond Europe,” laments David Traub, general manager for the national affiliate of Swiss-headquartered pharma giant Novartis. “The main issue, in my view, is that the public and political discussions here are almost entirely centred on data privacy, safety, and risk. While these concerns are legitimate and must be addressed, they have overshadowed the incredible opportunities that digitalisation brings.”
Compounding what Traub sees as an excessive focus on the risks of digitalisation is Switzerland’s political structure itself. As Dimitri Gitas, managing director of MSD, notes, “With 26 cantons, each operating its own healthcare system, there is a lack of integration and consistency across the country. This fragmentation makes it difficult to build a unified, digitally advanced healthcare ecosystem that can enhance patient care and streamline processes.”
This has led to glacial progress. “Projects like the electronic patient dossier, which have been in development for 12 or 13 years, are still not fully implemented,” explains Ernst Niemack, managing director of vips, an industry trade body. “There is even an ongoing debate about whether to start the project over from scratch or improve the existing system.”
The benefits of greater digitalisation could be felt across the system. “From a patient perspective, digitalisation offers transparency and empowerment,” explains Traub. “Patients should have real-time access to their health data, allowing them to manage their health more effectively. At present, that data is largely inaccessible. Second, from a healthcare system standpoint, you cannot ensure quality care or make informed, value-based investments without tracking outcomes. We simply don’t have the necessary data to evaluate what’s working.”
Then there are the purely financial considerations. “A more aggressive adoption of digital health solutions could potentially save up to 20 percent in healthcare costs if we achieve full digitalisation,” muses Niemack. Florian Schick, president of Merck Switzerland, adds that “the cost of not advancing in digital maturity is substantial, particularly as digitalisation would contribute to decreased healthcare expenses. For example, when patients visit multiple physicians, they often have to repeat the same tests because there’s no streamlined sharing of medical records. This not only wastes resources but also drives up costs without adding value. A well-structured digital infrastructure could eliminate such inefficiencies, leading to more coordinated, cost-effective, sustainable and safer care.”
While, for now, Switzerland maintains its status as a market where most of biopharma’s latest innovations are able to be launched, a lack of digital infrastructure puts this under threat. Over at Amgen, General Manager Myriam deLeone has misgivings as to Switzerland’s readiness for the new era of precision medicine. “Widely adopting precision medicine within clinical practice requires standardization of testing methods, data sharing, access to patient data in electronic health record systems, and the integration of multi-omics data,” she says. “Therefore, we need a strong interoperable and nationwide, standardized, and optimized data infrastructure supported by advanced digitalisation.”
This could also give a shot in the arm to Switzerland’s steadily declining clinical trial numbers. “The decentralized nature of our hospitals and the absence of a cohesive digital infrastructure make organizing and conducting clinical trials more complex and costly,” says René Buholzer, the CEO of another trade body, Interpharma, which represents the leading R&D based pharma multinationals in Switzerland. “We’ve been working to address this by advocating for the decentralization of clinical trials, and while Swissmedic has given approval for this, until now the adoption rate has been slower than anticipated.”
“Having a centralized, digital healthcare system would greatly enhance the ability to identify and enroll patients more rapidly,” adds Gitas. “Such a system would allow clinical trial teams to quickly locate eligible participants, ensuring that trials can progress without delays.”
Real-world evidence (RWE) generation – a crucial element for proving the long-term safety, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness of medicines – could also benefit. “While clinical trials capture only 2 to 3 percent of the available data, the remaining 98 percent is an untapped resource that could greatly improve patient outcomes and healthcare efficiency,” says Katharina Gasser, general manager of Roche Pharma. “Without a robust digital infrastructure, it becomes difficult to effectively collect and utilize real-world data, which in turn delays the ability to translate those insights into improved patient care,” adds Florian Saur, country president of AstraZeneca.
All in all then, the benefits of increased digitalisation are myriad. As J&J Innovative Medicine Managing Director Max Pahlow surmises, “successful implementation of digitalisation will reduce healthcare costs, minimise waste, improve diagnostic accuracy, and prevent unnecessary treatments. Digital tools can also help avoid harmful drug-drug interactions while streamlining administrative tasks would allow more resources to be directed towards patient care rather than bureaucratic processes.”
The Green Shoots of Progress
While Switzerland’s healthcare digitalisation process can thus far be best described as sluggish, there are – in the words of Merck’s Florian Schick, “encouraging signs of progress.” These include the Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN), established in 2017, which focuses on developing a coordinated infrastructure to make health-related data interoperable and shareable for research, promoting personalized medicine. In January 2025 an initiative known as ‘Digisanté’ will begin to be implemented, building on some similar themes. Led by the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) and the Federal Office of Statistics, Digisanté will see investment of CHF 400 million (EUR 429 million) over the next decade on essential digital infrastructure in the healthcare sector. The project was first launched in 2022 and is set to run until 2034.
“Digisanté is intended to achieve four strategic objectives on behalf of the entire healthcare system: to digitalise, standardise, anchor and orchestrate,” proclaims FOPH Director-General Anne Levy. “I’m convinced that, within the next ten years, we’ll be clearly benefiting from all the efficiency gains that derive from having systems better interlinked. The digitalised healthcare data that Digisanté provides should also make such data more easily available to the research field. Subject, needless to say, to the requisite patient consent. For this, of course, we need not only the right technical infrastructure but the right legal framework, too. Which is why this is also part of the Digisanté programme.”
Industry reaction has been positive but reserved. “These types of initiatives are crucial, not only for establishing common standards and legal frameworks but also improving infrastructure and, engaging the public to increase acceptance of digital solutions in healthcare,” says J&J’s Pahlow.
Traub of Novartis is rather more circumspect and urges bolder action. “Initiatives like DigiSanté are positive steps, but they are not nearly enough,” he states. “Switzerland is decades behind, and we shouldn’t simply aim to catch up with where countries like Denmark or Finland were ten years ago. We need to think much bigger and be far more ambitious. Beyond these initiatives, the public discourse needs to change. Right now, the conversation is still dominated by concerns over risks, but we’re not talking enough about the value digitalisation could bring. If this mindset doesn’t shift, we risk implementing limited digital solutions that won’t deliver the full potential.”
He suggests that rather than allowing patients to choose whether to enrol in the EPR system (as currently proposed within Digisanté), Switzerland should instead create an “opt-out” system. Drawing on the model currently being used in Finland, citizens would automatically be enrolled in an EPR system with a single national standard. This system would also be interoperable with those of other European nations to maximise its effectiveness. “Anything less would mean that Switzerland continues to fall behind in the global healthcare landscape,” concludes Traub.
