Stand Initia­ti­ve Basel-Land (22.318): Advan­cing the digi­tizati­on of the Swiss heal­th­ca­re system. Deve­lop data-based eco­sy­stem for rese­arch and society.

Stand Initia­ti­ve Basel-Land (22.318): Advan­cing the digi­tizati­on of the Swiss heal­th­ca­re system. Deve­lop data-based eco­sy­stem for rese­arch and society.

Sub­mit­ted text

The regu­la­to­ry frame­work and also cor­re­spon­ding incen­ti­ves must be adapt­ed so that the Swiss heal­th­ca­re system can be digi­ti­zed as quick­ly as pos­si­ble and thus deve­lop into a net­work­ed heal­th­ca­re data eco­sy­stem. Switz­er­land now needs

  • a com­mon infras­truc­tu­re, with which health data can be coll­ec­ted, pro­ce­s­sed, stored, shared and also deleted;
  • Com­mon tech­ni­cal, data pro­tec­tion and ethi­cal Stan­dardswhich regu­la­te how this data is to be recor­ded and structured;
  • Edu­ca­ti­on, buil­ding trust and accep­tance of such a Foun­da­ti­ons;
  • regu­la­to­ry Frame­work and incentives;
  • Edu­ca­ti­on and trai­ning of pro­fes­sio­nals with strong digi­tal skills;
  • a sus­tainable Fun­ding and invest­ments in the digi­tizati­on of healthcare.

Justi­fi­ca­ti­on

Switz­er­land has Need to catch up in the digi­tizati­on of the heal­th­ca­re sec­tor. This is con­firm­ed by seve­ral sources (Ber­tels­mann Digi­tal-Health Index, OECD-Tech­ni­cal and Ope­ra­tio­nal Rea­di­ness Index, stu­dy on digi­ta­lizati­on in health rese­arch by BAK Eco­no­mics, WHO ranks Switz­er­land far behind in the use of elec­tro­nic pati­ent files). The Coro­na pan­de­mic cle­ar­ly demon­stra­ted this to us. The Swiss heal­th­ca­re system does not have a cor­re­spon­din­gly modern infras­truc­tu­re to coll­ect, store and share data.

Switz­er­land is used to a high level of pro­spe­ri­ty and reli­es on a strong life sci­en­ces loca­ti­on. Life sci­en­ces exports curr­ent­ly account for over 51 per­cent of Switzerland’s total exports. In the future, we will only be able to main­tain this if Switz­er­land is also at the fore­front of digi­ta­lizati­on in the heal­th­ca­re sec­tor and con­ti­nues to deve­lop fur­ther. The data-based heal­th­ca­re indu­stry is a big chan­ge. The use of health-rela­ted data allo­ws bet­ter tre­at­ment the­ra­pies, more tar­ge­ted heal­th­ca­re, but also more effi­ci­ent rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment. Invest­ments in busi­ness are­as or com­pa­nies acti­ve in the digi­tal health sec­tor are incre­a­sing world­wi­de. Howe­ver, Switz­er­land is incre­a­sing­ly losing importance here and the­re is a shorta­ge of spe­cia­lists. Health data for rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment is used anony­mously, encrypt­ed or with con­sent in accordance with legal requi­re­ments. Despi­te the­se strict requi­re­ments, aggre­ga­ted data is still not available in suf­fi­ci­ent quantity.

The coll­ec­tion and struc­tu­re of (cli­ni­cal) data in the Swiss heal­th­ca­re system is poor­ly regu­la­ted. Moreo­ver, digi­tal data pro­ce­s­sing is not yet wide­spread, espe­ci­al­ly in the out­pa­ti­ent sec­tor and to some ext­ent also in the long-term care sec­tor. The finan­cing system of the heal­th­ca­re system also crea­tes only limi­t­ed incen­ti­ves for coope­ra­ti­on bet­ween the indi­vi­du­al ser­vice pro­vi­ders. As a result, the exi­sting heal­th­ca­re data is stored in indi­vi­du­al systems that are fun­da­men­tal­ly not lin­ked to one ano­ther, and their struc­tu­re, seman­tics and meta­da­ta are not uni­form­ly regu­la­ted, and inter­ope­ra­bi­li­ty does not exist across the board. The lack of bin­ding spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­ons for the data struc­tu­re also poses a chall­enge for the imple­men­ta­ti­on of the ePD.

The attrac­ti­ve­ness of the life sci­en­ces indu­stry – a dri­ving force of the Swiss eco­no­my and its high repu­ta­ti­on world­wi­de – will decli­ne in inter­na­tio­nal com­pa­ri­son if it does not suc­ce­ed in rapid­ly advan­cing the digi­tizati­on of heal­th­ca­re. Switz­er­land stands to lose a lot if the chal­lenges of the chan­ge that has begun are not maste­red. The cour­se must be set quickly.

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