Information system for notifiable diseases becomes more efficient
The monitoring of communicable diseases and the early detection of epidemiological developments require the rapid and reliable reporting of the relevant cases of disease by healthcare professionals. The Federal Council recently decided on a further digitalization step in the reporting procedure. From January 1, 2024, identifiers such as the AHV number will be used to improve data quality.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shown how important rapidly available and reliable case data is for managing the pandemic, as the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) writes. According to the FOPH, the requirements for the collection, transmission and consolidation of reports and thus the provision of case data were high. In order to prevent cases from being counted more than once, a great deal of effort had to be put into daily data cleansing.
In order to improve the efficiency and reliability of the reporting system, the Federal Council has decided to extend the notification of findings by doctors, hospitals, laboratories and other institutions. The notification now includes the AHV number of the person concerned, the unique identification number (GLN) of the healthcare professional submitting the notification and the company and business identification number (UID and BURNR) of the reporting company.
These identifiers enable largely automated and efficient data processing by preventing the multiple registration of persons and institutions in the reporting process and thus reducing the need for data cleansing.
The new, standardized electronic reporting will initially be introduced for laboratories from the beginning of 2024 and is to be extended to all stakeholders by the end of 2025. This new legal basis for the use of identifiers is an important step in the digitalization of the reporting system.
Press release Federal Office of Public Health
