Appropriate patient care

The FOPH wishes to promote appropriate patient care. The goal is to avoid over-, under- and misuse in health care. To this end, the FOPH is developing a Masterplan in collaboration with all stakeholders.

What is the purpose of this initiative?

Goal of the initiative

With this initiative, the FOPH aims to help promote appropriate patient care in Switzerland. The goal is to avoid over-, under- and misuse and thus to improve patient care.

Definitions appropriate patient care

 

The goal of appropriate patient care is to avoid over-, under- and misuse in health care and thus to improve patient care. Patient care is appropriate when the services provided meet individual needs and come at the right time. The following points apply:

• Meeting of individual needs comprises all the services required for medical treatment which take patients’ individual treatment goals into account.
• Overuse occurs when services go beyond the meeting of individu-al needs, without providing any (or sufficient) benefits for patients.
• Underuse occurs when, in spite of evidence of individual needs, services cannot be provided or cannot be accessed by patients.
• Misuse occurs when inappropriate services cause avoidable phys-ical, mental or financial harm to patients.

Role of the FOPH and stakeholders

In order to promote appropriate patient care, the FOPH wishes to intensify dialogue among all the parties concerned and to assume a coordinating role. Since responsibilities and powers are distributed among numerous different actors within the Swiss health system, over-, under- or incorrect treatment cannot be controlled by a single actor or by the FOPH alone. All stakeholders have a part to play.

Causes of over-, under- and misuse

The causes of over-, under- and misuse are manifold. Activities designed to improve patient care must therefore involve various lines of attack. Causal clusters identified in the literature include service provision, patient behaviour, the health system (e.g. care structures, tariff-related incentives), and science and research.

Many stakeholders are planning or have already initiated activities to pro-mote appropriate patient care (e.g. The Obsan Swiss Health Care Atlas, smarter medicine - Choosing Wisely Switzerland).

Masterplan

In order to create a common framework for the promotion of appropriate patient care, the FOPH is developing a Masterplan in collaboration with all stakeholders involved in healthcare.

The Masterplan will provide a thematically structured overview of the ongo-ing and planned activities of all actors in this sector. It is to be periodically updated, thus enabling regular exchanges and knowledge transfer among the various actors. Areas where future action is required can thus be identi-fied and new activities jointly initiated.

The aim is not to call existing responsibilities into question or to introduce new regulations.

The FOPH invites all stakeholders concerned to play an active part in the efforts to promote appropriate patient care and to develop the Masterplan.

 

Timeline

The development of the Masterplan will involve three phases:

• Phase 1 (up to spring 2025): preparation of the first version of the Masterplan – definition of dimensions and action areas, and initial assessment.
• Phase 2 (summer 2025): examination of the need for further action with the stakeholders
• Phase 3 (from autumn 2025): annual updating of the Masterplan
  

Steps taken by the FOPH so far…

The Masterplan is being developed on a participatory basis, in close consultation with all stakeholders involved in healthcare.

In Phase 1, a shared understanding of the aims of the initiative is to be developed, and an overview is to be produced of ongoing or specifically planned activities designed to promote appropriate patient care.

To this end, at a kick-off meeting held on 25 March 2024, the FOPH presented its planned procedure to various umbrella associations .

At a workshop held on 14 May 2024, over 30 representatives of various stakeholders participated in the discussion and further development of the goals, demarcations, and possible action areas proposed by the FOPH , as well as the planned procedure.

As the next step, an initial Activities Survey is to be conducted in summer 2024. Stakeholders are invited to submit their ongoing and planned activi-ties relating to the promotion of appropriate patient care.

 

... and outlook

The activities submitted and the suggestions from the workshop will be fed into the draft version of the Masterplan, which will be presented to stakeholders for discussion at another workshop, to be held in autumn 2024. 

By the end of 2024, the FOPH will present a revised draft version of the Masterplan, including a proposal for monitoring implementation of the activities listed.

Prior to finalisation of the first version of the Masterplan, all stakeholders will have an opportunity to provide feedback within the framework of a written consultation procedure. Publication of the Masterplan on the FOPH website is scheduled for spring 2025.

In Phase 2, during the first half of 2025, any need for further action is to be evaluated with all stakeholders, and possible further activities are to be initiated.

In Phase 3, from autumn 2025, annual updating of the Masterplan is envisaged.

Links

The Obsan Swiss Health Care Atlas | www.versorgungsatlas.ch

Smarter medicine | www.smartermedicine.ch

Last modification 11.06.2024