The National Council approves a million dollar loan for digital health

By 127 votes to 64, the Grand Chamber accepted the commitment credit for the program to promote digital transformation in healthcare (Digisanté) in the general vote. The proposal now goes to the Council of States.

Only the SVP faction said no to the multi-million dollar digitalization program. Party leader Thomas Aeschi (ZG) referred to the troubled federal finances. Healthcare spending must be reduced. The proposal should therefore not be taken into account. However, this motion found no support outside the SVP.

“It’s five to twelve”

Despite the broad approval, there were many critical voices in the council. “We are excellent in direct medical care, but we do not make enough use of digitalization,” said Kris Vietze (FDP/TG), spokeswoman for the leading health committee, which represents the majority. Despite justified skepticism about large IT projects, one should not lose sight of the goal of digitalization.

“Digitalization is still in its infancy” This is what SP spokeswoman Sarah Wyss (BS) says. It now takes effort from everyone. “Let’s not stop digitalization before it starts.” Manuela Weichelt (Greens/ZG) expressed concerns about the long implementation time of the project:

Thomas Rechsteiner (center/AI) described Digisanté as a “remedy to catch up on digitalization in healthcare.” But there are risks and side effects. Effective controls must be installed.

“Decisive action needed”

Despite all the criticism of past failures, it should be noted that the program starts in the right places, says Andri Silberschmidt (ZH) on behalf of the FDP faction. “Digitalization is not an easy undertaking, but it is necessary.” There has been too little talk about processes and automation so far.

For Melanie Mettler (GLP/BE), Digisanté is an important basis for the implementation of the electronic patient file. “We are happy to see things moving forward as quickly as possible.” If you wait, investments in digitalization will only become more expensive.

Health Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider pointed out that there is no lack of will to move forward. “But decisive action is necessary now.” Without coordination between the different players in healthcare, this would not work.

Ambitious goals

The large-scale program is intended to increase the quality of treatment, efficiency and transparency of the healthcare system and patient safety over a period of ten years. Hospitals and doctor’s practices have been working digitally for a long time, but with different programs. Much data now needs to be recorded multiple times, which is a source of errors.

The aim of the program is to better coordinate systems and processes in healthcare. The federal government wants to use the money to consistently digitize health-related government services such as registries, reporting systems or information platforms and ensure that they can communicate with other IT systems.

However, close monitoring of the program is crucial for the National Council. It provides the Federal Ministry of the Interior (EDI) with clear guidelines on target setting, monitoring and the involvement of those affected and requires annual reporting to parliament.

Internal rather than external solution

The plenary rejected a request from the Financial Commission of the National Council (FK-N) to compensate the positions created within the EDI as part of the program. A majority of the SP, FDP, Greens and GLP prevailed – with 105 votes in favor, 84 votes and 2 abstentions.

The Federal Office for Public Health (BAG) and the Federal Social Insurance Office (BSV) already made their contribution to the project, was the gist. The entire program costs 623 million francs. Parliament must decide on a loan of 391.7 million francs.

Moreover, according to a majority, internal workers are cheaper than external experts who would have to be engaged if compensation were to take place within the EDI. There are fears that major delays may occur. (saw/sda)