The ZHAW is researching with Swiss universities and industry partners how hospitals can implement the digital transformation. The Innosuisse flagship project “SHIFT” runs until 2025.
Modern forms of organization, digital technologies such as virtual reality or artificial intelligence, and the networking of processes and data can turn the hospital into an intelligent system and increase quality and efficiency. For three and a half years, a consortium led by the ZHAW is researching how this transformation to the hospital of the future can be implemented - together with four other research partners, around 20 hospitals and 24 industry partners. The research project "Smart Hospital - Integrated Framework, Tools & Solutions" (SHIFT) runs until June 2025. It has a total budget of 5.7 million Swiss francs and is supported as a flagship project by Innosuisse, the Swiss agency for innovation promotion.
Hospitals are the central and largest players in the healthcare system in terms of costs. "Accordingly, we have a particularly effective lever here to better tap the potential of digitalisation. Within the framework of SHIFT, we can, in a sense, develop a blueprint for the digital transformation of the entire healthcare system," explains ZHAW health economist Alfred Angerer, one of the two co-leaders of the research program.
Digital technologies help hospitals to better cope with challenges such as cost pressure, demographic change or higher quality demands. One example is data-based forecasting models for predicting, planning and optimizing workforce scheduling. In addition, sensors and apps can, for example, help to promote physical activity in patients after surgery and provide healthcare professionals with corresponding data for monitoring treatment goals.
"The 'Smart Hospital' is thus characterised, among other things, by more proactive care for patients and by putting people even more at the center of processes," says Sven Hirsch, co-leader of SHIFT and head of the ZHAW Digital Health Lab. Digitisation will generally increase the possibilities for detecting diseases earlier or even preventing them. "With their help, we can also adapt the treatment even better to the patients. For example, we can discharge some of them earlier from the hospital to their familiar environment at home and still continue to treat them," adds Jens Eckstein, internist at the University Hospital Basel and Medical Director of SHIFT.
The research program comprises three areas: In the first, research is being conducted into how inpatient treatment in hospital and outpatient follow-up care for patients at home can be seamlessly linked with the help of digital technologies. The second is about developing solutions to further strengthen the ability of staff and patients to act in everyday hospital life. The third area concerns the development of effective and efficient hospital management processes.
The Innosuisse flagship project SHIFT is led by the Institute of Health Economics of the ZHAW School of Management and Law, together with an interdisciplinary ZHAW team from informatics, health, data analysis and process design. In addition to the University Hospital Basel, the Universities of Basel and Zurich, the FHNW and the participating hospitals, 24 industrial partners contribute to the integration of the project into practice. With its Flagship Initiative, Innosuisse promotes innovations in areas that are relevant to a large part of the economy and society. SHIFT is one of the 15 research projects approved in the 2021 Flagship call.
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