February 7, 2024
The challenges in Switzerland’s healthcare system are great. To solve problems, all actors must work together. As a player in the healthcare system, Interpharma therefore sees it as its role and responsibility to actively contribute to the further development of the healthcare system as a whole in Switzerland. Against this background, Interpharma has developed seven fundamental principles for the further development of the Swiss healthcare system. I would like to discuss two of these seven principles in more detail in this article.
René Buholzer, Managing Director of Interpharma and Delegate of the Board of Directors
As great as the challenges are in Switzerland’s healthcare system – key words are the shortage of skilled workers and cost growth – the expectations of the newly elected parliament and the new health minister, Federal Councilor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, are just as great. In view of demographic developments, the ever-increasing medical options and the associated increasing demands, new approaches are needed to sustainably ensure the quality, access and financing of the healthcare system.
The principles are:
- Holistic and sustainable health policy
- Patient-focused and high quality
Healthcare - Data-driven healthcare
- Strong research and innovative healthcare system
- Fast and equal access
- Reliable healthcare
- Personal responsibility and prevention
Interpharma, together with its members, has developed seven fundamental principles that should serve as a compass for the further development of the Swiss healthcare system. We see these principles as a complement to our comprehensive strategy “Switzerland as a pharmaceutical location 2030”, which outlines the overarching guidelines for the pharmaceutical location. The order of these principles is not a ranking – each individual principle is of equal importance.
In the following, I will deepen the principles of “holistic and sustainable health policy” and “data-based health care”.
First element: holistic and sustainable health policy
We are convinced that a sustainable healthcare system must take a “holistic and sustainable perspective. In our opinion, we are still a long way from that. Currently, a cost-tube view of the individual silos dominates. But that doesn’t get us anywhere. We need a change of perspective: away from the costs of individual services, i.e. from the input into the health system in the individual silos, towards assessing and rewarding the output, i.e. the benefits of a health service along the entire treatment path.
This requires effective cooperation and coordination between service providers beyond their own specialist areas, ideally from prevention to diagnosis and healing. The various specialists and disciplines must work as a team, always with an eye on optimizing the benefit for the patient. Such an approach is likely to result in higher quality and fewer duplications, errors and complications, which will ultimately help contain costs.
If we then began to compensate for the benefits of the treatment instead of the specific act of providing the service, we would be laying the basis for a quality competition in which the needs of the patients would inevitably be the focus of the actors’ efforts. The industry has already shown in drug pricing models that it is prepared to take this route and be measured by the benefits of its drugs. However, such quality competition only works on the basis of standardized, systematically collected health data. This leads directly to the second element.
Second element: data-based healthcare
A central component for the further development of the healthcare system in Switzerland is the development of a nationwide digital infrastructure. Only such an infrastructure enables seamless communication and collaboration between all service providers and patients.
Today we have three concrete digitization construction sites in the Swiss healthcare system:
(1) The systematic and standardized data collection,
(2) the rules for the secondary use of data and
(3) the governance of the process of data collection and secondary use.
The Federal Council’s DigiSanté program, which is currently being discussed in parliament, addresses these three specific challenges and thus lays the foundation for the health data ecosystem. Interpharma therefore supports the commitment loan for DigiSanté. Because: Digital transformation helps reduce bureaucracy, increase efficiencies, improve quality and sustainably contain costs. This benefits the population and all those involved in the healthcare system.
The digitalization of the healthcare system also paves the way for innovation in research. The secondary use of health data makes it possible, for example, to better understand diseases that have previously been little researched. This knowledge from data supports the development of new innovative therapies. In order for this to be possible, there must be uniform standards as well as efficient and secure interfaces for the data collected and a clear legal framework as to how this data can be further used.
With regard to DigiSanté, we call for rapid implementation, strong coordination and political leadership from the federal government and the inclusion of experiences from existing projects. For the research-based pharmaceutical industry, the focus is on the secondary use of data, which is to be addressed in Package 4 of DigiSanté. This requires a clear legal framework, such as the one provided Framework law for the secondary use of data should be created. Because: The current legal framework is like a patchwork quilt. We have commented on this in various places in recent years, including commissioning a legal opinion and, together with academic social research, presenting an input paper on the framework law for the secondary use of data.
It is important to note that administration and politics should have at least equal interest in being able to use data for secondary purposes. With the help of this data, better, i.e. fact-based, decisions can be made quickly. This is particularly important for managing crises, as we learned during COVID. Against this background, it must Human Research Act quickly revised become. Because it currently does not take digitalization into account. However, the Human Research Act should enable research with health data and create legal certainty.
Unfortunately, Switzerland is at the bottom of the international rankings when it comes to digitalization. To catch up, Switzerland must quickly advance the digital transformation of the healthcare system and invest in building a connected health data ecosystem. It is high time to break down the silo structures. In this way, we are making the Swiss healthcare system fit for the future and can offer patients good care.
As a significant and experienced player in the healthcare sector – Interpharma celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2023 – we see it as our role and responsibility to actively contribute to the further development of the healthcare system in Switzerland. Now it’s time to look forward and not sit back. All players in the healthcare system are required. We hope that our principles will trigger one or two discussions in this direction.
2024-02-07 11:03:50
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