The Swiss Pathogen Surveillance Platform - towards a nation-wide One Health data exchange platform for bacterial, viral and fungal genomics and associated metadata.

The Swiss Pathogen Surveillance Platform (SPSP) is a shared secure surveillance platform between human and veterinary medicine, to also include environmental and foodborne isolates. It enables rapid and detailed transmission monitoring and outbreak surveillance of pathogens using whole genome sequencing data and associated metadata. It features controlled data access, complex dynamic queries, dedicated dashboards and automated data sharing with international repositories, providing actionable results for public health and the vision to improve societal well-being and health.

Sensing the (digital) pulse. Future steps for improving the secondary use of data for research in Switzerland.

Introduction: Ensuring that the health data infrastructure and governance permits an efficient secondary use of data for research is a policy priority for many countries. Switzerland is no exception and many initiatives have been launched to improve its health data landscape. The country now stands at an important crossroad, debating the right way forward.

The devil is in the details: an analysis of patient rights in Swiss cancer registries.

Cancer registries are an important part of the public health infrastructure, since they allow to monitor the temporal trends of this illness as well as facilitate epidemiological research. In order to effectively set up such registries, it is necessary to create a system of data collection that permits to record health-related information from patients who are diagnosed with cancer. Given the sensitive nature of such data, it is debated whether their recording should be based on consent or whether alternative arrangements are possible (eg, opt-out systems where information is automatically collected but patients can later withdraw).

Evolution or Revolution? Recommendations to Improve the Swiss Health Data Framework.

Facilitating access to health data for public health and research purposes is an important element in the health policy agenda of many countries. Improvements in this sense can only be achieved with the development of an appropriate data infrastructure and the implementations of policies that also respect societal preferences. Switzerland is a revealing example of a country that has been struggling to achieve this aim.