Quality rating: needs improvement

Improving the quality of healthcare and promoting patient safety are among the most important goals of the Federal Council’s healthcare policy agenda Health2020. This is because the FOPH’s national quality report brought to light that half of the approximately ten percent of adverse medical events during a hospital stay could have been avoided.

The FOPH’s national quality report revealed that the quality of medical care in Switzerland needs to be improved. The report shows that in the complex, decentrally organized Swiss healthcare system, the provision of information to improve the quality of medical care is urgently needed. There is a lack of actionable and accessible information that is urgently needed to review standards of care and the impact of health interventions taken. As a result, needed progress to increase health care delivery and promote patient safety is hindered. Transparency about quality is required. To this end, quality and safety indicators must be developed that apply to the whole of Switzerland. There is a great need for action, especially with regard to medication. To date, there is no national medication safety program and regulations vary among cantons. For example, the introduction of systematic medication reconciliation upon hospital admission is currently being implemented in only one Swiss hospital. Planned measures to improve medication safety include computerized prescribing systems and standardized medication procedures. Swissmedic, among others, is working hard on this. The Smarter Medicine campaign, available in some regions, also aims to promote measures and interventions to optimize drug treatments and prevent unnecessary medical tests, treatments and procedures. However, a shift in thinking is needed across the healthcare sector. A culture is needed in which errors are openly addressed, transparently reported and systematically recorded. This will require the development of further national quality programs.

Source: www.spectra-online.ch/de/spectra/themen/qualitaetsbericht-des-bag-mehr-daten-mehr-transparenz-840-10.html