Swiss Post has been at the forefront of eHealth's expansion in Switzerland with its electronic products and services. Its vivates electronic patient record allows the cantons to regionally implement the "eHealth Strategy Switzerland" jointly drawn up by the Confederation and the cantons. The strategy aims to see everyone resident in Switzerland given access to an electronic patient record by 2015. A corresponding federal law is being drawn up to set out the framework for the implementation of the strategy.

vivates makes treatment procedures safer

Swiss Post’s electronic patient record brings together the healthcare professionals - doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, laboratories etc. - involved, and enables communication and information to be managed efficiently. Patients can thus make relevant information about themselves available online to medical professionals of their choice, at any time and from anywhere. This increases patients' self-determination and ensures more secure and efficient treatment procedures in the health sector. The solution from Swiss Post was developed by the Swiss Post group unit Swiss Post Solutions together with the canton of Geneva in the e-toile pilot project. It has been used in four Geneva municipalities since the beginning of 2011. e-toile has since matured into a technical solution, and is now available from Swiss Post under its new name vivates.

Cantons show considerable interest

Thanks to its encouraging progress, the Geneva pilot is to be expanded throughout the entire canton during 2013. e-toile was awarded the "Cross-regional -strategy-compliant - several communities 2011" label by the "eHealth Suisse" coordinating body at the end of 2011. eHealth Suisse had the Geneva electronic patient record appraised beforehand by an independent body. To date, e-toile is the only pilot in Switzerland that has been certified as being fully compliant with the "eHealth Strategy Switzerland". e-toile is also the first Swiss pilot affiliated with the EU-wide project epSOS (European Patients Smart Open Services). The canton of Ticino will use vivates and will start a pilot project in oncology as part of the Rete sanitaria initiative in spring 2013. As the standards and architecture recommendations from eHealth Suisse were strictly followed during the development of vivates, the cantons will benefit from the platform's supra-regional interoperability and joint advancement of the solution. Other cantons are showing considerable interest in vivates and, in some cases, are already applying sub-elements of the solution.

Swiss Post a pioneer in eHealth

The handling of confidential data, the identification of the sender and recipient, as well as the reliable and secure transfer of information are all elements of Swiss Post's core business. As one of the most innovative postal organisations worldwide, Swiss Post addressed the digitisation of physical data traffic at an early stage in the health sector too. Today eHealth gives it a unique pool of knowledge and experience in Switzerland and supports the cantons and service providers in the health sector from the design and execution of pilot projects to the full introduction of the vivates electronic patient record. Besides the technical platform, Swiss Post also provides patients with the necessary means to gain secure and easy access to their electronic data record. In addition to SuisseID, these include the health insurance card Plus and the Carte Patient, which was designed by Swiss Post for pilot projects.