POLICY BRIEF
Public Health Rev.
Building Resilience Through Better Performance Assessment of Switzerland’s Health System in Times of Crises
- CP
Camille Poroes 1
- LS
Laurence Seematter-Bagnoud 1,2
- KW
Kaspar Wyss 3,4
- IP
Isabelle Peytremann-Bridevaux 1,2
1. Unisante, Lausanne, Switzerland
2. Universite de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
3. Schweizerisches Tropen- und Public Health-Institut, Allschwil, Switzerland
4. Universitat Basel, Basel, Switzerland
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Abstract
Background: The increase in patients’ needs and demands resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an assessment of whether health systems were performant enough. Health system performance refers as how far health systems achieve their desired goals. Measuring the Swiss health system performance taking into account its ability to prepare, manage and learn from a crisis will allow to better interpret the assessment. Analysis: Assessments of the Swiss health system performance appear not to fully align to recent developments on conceptual thinking of the WHO and the OECD, notably regarding the assessment of the resilience of a health system, and need to be modified to better reflect current developments. Policy options: Recommendations include considering resilience as a core concept, standardizing a framework integrating resilience, considering resilience indicators, and enhancing data collection and sharing. Conclusion: To ensure long-term resilience and performance, Switzerland must act decisively to unify its data systems, institutionalize regular performance reviews including resilience indicators, and build a common framework and language for resilience.
Summary
Keywords
health system, Performance, resilience, Crisis, Assessment
Received
02 July 2025
Accepted
03 December 2025
Copyright
© 2025 Poroes, Seematter-Bagnoud, Wyss and Peytremann-Bridevaux. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Camille Poroes, camille.poroes@unisante.ch
Disclaimer
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