SPHN Unifies Health Data in Switzerland

The Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN) is a government-funded initiative launched in 2017 to enable secure and standardized access to health-related data for research purposes.

Coordinated by the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences and the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, the initiative aims to establish a national data infrastructure that supports personalized health research across Switzerland’s hospitals and institutions.

Key Components of the Initiative

SPHN’s infrastructure focuses on interoperability, security, and data reusability. Its main elements include:

• BioMedIT Network: A federated environment for processing sensitive biomedical data through secure nodes in Basel, Lausanne, and Zurich.

• Semantic Standards: Use of international terminologies such as SNOMED CT and LOINC to ensure that clinical and omics data are interoperable across systems.

• Data Coordination Center (DCC): Manages legal frameworks, ethics compliance, data access procedures, and quality standards across the national network.

Why This Infrastructure Is Needed

Health data in Switzerland is stored in fragmented and non-standardized formats, making it difficult for research institutions to collaborate or scale studies across regions. Researchers often face delays or limitations when trying to access clinical or genomic data from different hospitals.

SPHN addresses this gap by providing a unified system that links health data across the country using standardized formats. This allows researchers to conduct large-scale studies more efficiently, including longitudinal analyses and population-level research.

How the System Is Funded and Governed

SPHN is financed by the Swiss government through the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation and the Federal Office of Public Health. The program received CHF 135 million between 2017 and 2024 and will continue with additional funding through 2028.

Governance is divided among national stakeholders:

• The SAMS provides strategic oversight.

• The SIB manages operational and technical implementation.

• Ethical and legal advisory boards ensure data usage complies with Swiss and international regulations.

Current Scope and Future Plans

SPHN has supported over 60 national research projects and developed foundational tools for secure data sharing. These include:

• Swiss Pathogen Surveillance Platform (SPSP)

• Swiss Variant Interpretation Platform for Oncology (SVIP-O)

• Personalized Swiss Sepsis Study (PSSS)

More than 700,000 patient records have been made accessible under FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles, allowing researchers to access and process data across institutions without compromising privacy.

Looking ahead, SPHN aims to further develop:

• National metadata catalogues.

• Expanded FAIR-compliant tools.

• Sustainable frameworks for long-term operations.