Data for Health: Joining Forces for a Swiss Health Research Data Ecosystem - SPHN

Data For Health Banner

Over the past eight years, the collaborative efforts of the Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN) initiative and the Personalized Health and Related Technologies (PHRT) program have laid important groundwork for advancing personalized health research. The two initiatives contributed to the development, implementation and validation of coordinated data infrastructures in order to make health-relevant data interoperable and shareable for research in Switzerland.

Reaching the end of the initiatives by the end of 2024, we warmly invite you to attend the "Data for Health" symposium in Bern on 31 October to discover the achievements and envision the future Swiss health research data ecosystem. The event will bring together stakeholders of the health care and research data ecosystem, including industry leaders and political representatives, patients, international experts and researchers, to discuss and foster personalized health research and care in Switzerland.

Program Keynote speakers Location & Contact Registration

Program

Symposium Program

08:00

Registration, Coffee

09:00

Welcome and Opening
U. Frey, C. Wolfrum

09:20

Keynote
Prof. Russ Altmann, Chair SPHN International Advisory Board, Stanford University, USA

09:45

Presentation infrastructure achievements by SPHN and PHRT
- SPHN-DCC and BioMedIT
- PHRT-SMOC
- NDS

10:10

Industry perspective
Dr. med. Katharina Gasser, General Manager Roche Pharma Switzerland

10:30

Coffee Break

11:00

Panel discussion
Prof. Murielle Bochud (Unisanté), Prof. Jörg Goldhahn (ETHZ), Dr. Elke Mittendorf (USZ), Lukas Engelberger (Schweizerische Gesundheitsdirektorenkonferenz)

11:50

Lunch

13:00

Ateliers and short talks
With experts from the SPHN and PHRT initiatives and infrastructures

14:35

Coffee Break

15:00

Shared benefits of research, healthcare and quality: how to bridge the gap
Prof. Martina Hirayama, State Secretary for Research and Innovation
Anne Lévy, Director Federal Office of Public Health

15:35

Patient panel
David Haerry (Positivrat), Dr. Jasmin Barman Aksözen (UZH), Dr. Olivier Menzel (Pro Raris), Larisa Aragon (Executive Board Member EUPATI) and researchers from the National Data Streams

16:15

Coffee Break

16:40

Parallel Session 1:	Parallel session 2:
FAIR health data for Research	FAIR health data for the Swiss healthcare system
Keynote Open Research Data in Health Prof. Antoine Geissbühler (HUG)	Keynote Overview on the DigiSanté program Dr. Katrin Crameri (FOPH)

17:05

Perspective from data science
Prof. Catherine Jutzeler (ETHZ)

Perspective from hospital ICT
P-F. Regamey (CHUV)

17:20

A clinical researcher’s perspective
Prof. Olivier Michielin (HUG)

Clinical impact of FAIR health data for
Personalized Medicine
Prof. Dr. Viola Heinzelmann (USB)

17:45

Outlook on the SPHN Data Coordination Center 2025-2028
Prof. Urs Frey, Chair SPHN National Steering Board

17:55

Closing remarks (SPHN & PHRT)
Prof. Urs Frey, Chair SPHN National Steering Board

18:00

Apéro

The day will be moderated by Karin Frei.

Karin Frei has worked for Swiss National Radio and Television for almost thirty years, as a journalist and anchorwoman. Today she has her own business, solves conflicts as a mediator and works as a moderator at conferences often in the field of research, energy and sustainability.

Keynote speakers

Dr. Martina Hirayama
Head of the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) at Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research

Martina Hirayama studied Chemistry at ETH Zurich, the University of Fribourg, and Imperial College London, earning a doctorate in technical sciences from ETH Zurich, where she also pursued postgraduate studies in Business Economics. She led the Polymer Chemistry Group at ETH Zurich and co-founded a start-up in coating technologies, serving as CEO until 2008. At ZHAW, she lectured in Industrial Chemistry, developed the field of polymer materials, and led the Institute of Materials and Process Engineering. From 2011 to 2018, she was Director of the ZHAW School of Engineering and held leadership roles in the Federal Institute of Metrology, Innosuisse, and other key organizations. Since 2019 Prof. Dr. Hirayama has been head of the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation.

Prof. Russ B. Altman
Stanford University

Russ Biagio Altman is the Kenneth Fong Professor of Bioengineering, Genetics, Medicine, Biomedical Data Science and (by courtesy) Computer Science) and past chairman of the Bioengineering Department at Stanford University. His primary research interests are in the application of computing (AI, data science and informatics) to problems relevant to medicine. He is particularly interested in methods for understanding drug action at molecular, cellular, organism and population levels. Russ Biagio Altman is the Kenneth Fong Professor of Bioengineering, Genetics, Medicine, Biomedical Data Science and (by courtesy) Computer Science) and past chairman of the Bioengineering Department at Stanford University. His primary research interests are in the application of computing (AI, data science and informatics) to problems relevant to medicine. He is particularly interested in methods for understanding drug action at molecular, cellular, organism and population levels. Russ is also the chairperson of the SPHN International Advisory Board.

Prof. Antoine Geissbühler
University of Geneva

Antoine Geissbühler is an internist and specialist in medical informatics. A full professor since 2006, he is also Director of the HUG Innovation Centre and Head of the Division of e-Health and Telemedicine, which has been designed as a WHO collaborating centre. His research focuses on the design and application of new IT tools in the medical field. In particular, he helped implement Switzerland's e-health strategy and developed the RAFT project, a major telemedicine network linking hundreds of healthcare professionals in 20 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Antoine is also the chairperson of the SPHN National Advisory Board and the ORD Taskforce Health and Life Science Data.

Anne Lévy
Director-General of the Federal Office of Public Health FOPH (since 2020)

Lic. sc. pol. degree in political science (University of Lausanne), Executive MBA (University of Fribourg)

Anne Lévy coordinates the FOPH’s business with the FDHA’s planning. She assures representation of the FOPH, and in some cases the FDHA, in interdepartmental working groups and on parliamentary committees and international bodies. In addition, Anne Lévy heads and plans healthcare reform projects at the national level.

2015–20 CEO, University Psychiatric Clinics, Basel | 2009–15 Head of Health Protection, Basel-Stadt Department of Health, Basel | 2004–09 Head of Alcohol and Tobacco Section, FOPH, Bern| 2003–04 Technical Assistant to the Assistant Director and Head of the Main Unit Substance Abuse and AIDS, FOPH, Bern | 2001–03 Research Associate, Head of Coordination and Service Platform for Addiction, FOPH, Bern | 2000 Project Manager, United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), New York

Dr. med. Katharina Gasser
General Manager of Roche Pharma Switzerland

Dr. med. Katharina Gasser studied medicine with a specialization in pharmaceutical medicine. She gained practical experience as a doctor in internal medicine and geriatrics and then moved into the healthcare industry, where she worked for many years in various management positions in Switzerland and around the world. Since September 2022 she is the General Manager of Roche Pharma Switzerland.

Location & Contact

Location

The symposium takes place at the Kursaal Bern:

Kursaal Bern
Kornhausstrasse 3
3001 Bern

Arrival by public transport: Take tram line no 9 from Bern train station (Kante B, direction of Bern Wankdorf) to the station Kursaal.
Arrival by car: Use "Kursaal Parking" as the address for your navigation system / Google Maps. The hotel's own underground parking garage provides 240 parking spaces.

Contact

For any questions concerning the symposium please contact:

events@dataforhealth.ch

To Learn more about the organisators:

Swiss Personalized Health Network: sphn.ch
Personalized Health and Related Technologies: sfa-phrt.ch

Registration