25 November 2021
At the beginning of 2018, SPHN and the five university hospitals signed collaboration agreements for building interoperable clinical data management systems. Thereby, the foundation was laid for the close cooperation between SPHN and the hospitals to support nationwide research with health-related data within the framework of the initiative. The review of SPHN’s activities at the end of 2020 showed that the hospitals had made great progress in setting up internal data management systems. The next phase should now focus even more on interoperability and sustainability of the infrastructure.
In order to seamlessly continue the collaboration, SPHN and the university hospitals renewed the agreements in mid-November 2021 for another three years. The associated preliminary work was strongly supported by unimedsuisse, in the frame of a working group created especially for that purpose. The working group identified the common goals of the hospitals and SPHN for the second funding period 2021 - 2024 and clarified the mutual benefits of the activities planned within the frame of the collaboration agreements. Furthermore, a common understanding on the framework conditions for "data sharing" between hospital and research was developed.
The SPHN Hospital IT Strategy Alignment Group (HIT-STAG) was heavily involved in the plausibility check and practical implementation of the renewed agreements. These are now formulated in a more concrete and binding way, including annual milestones, joint monitoring and a regular updating of the objectives. With the collaboration agreements, the hospitals make a strong commitment to provide the necessary resources for the successful implementation of SPHN projects.