Hospital Beds Per 1,000 Population, 2020: 4.48
Doctors Consultations In All Settings, Number Per Capita, 2017: 4.3
Hospital Average Length of Stay, All Causes, 2020: 8.2 Days
Computed Tomography Scanners Per Million Population, 2020: 39.59
Mammographs Per Million Population, 2020: 29.64
Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. OECD.Stat. Last accessed Jan. 30, 2023.
“Acute inpatient care is provided in general hospitals as well as in surgical, gynaecology/neonatology and paediatric specialty hospitals. Specialty hospitals also exist for psychiatric (see section 5.11) and rehabilitation (see section 5.6) care, as well as for geriatrics. Tertiary care is provided in university hospitals (level 1) and other large hospitals (level 2). Levels 3, 4 and 5 distinguish hospitals with lower case-loads.
“Almost 70% of general acute inpatient hospitals in Switzerland are publicly owned or subsidized, with the remainder being privately owned (see section 4.1). Specialized hospitals, e.g. for surgical, gynaecological or paediatric care, are mostly privately owned. Private non-profit hospitals may fall into both categories, i.e. subsidized or privately owned, depending on whether their activity is recognized as being of public interest qualifying them for subsidies (relating to these public interest functions) or not. Most emergency services are provided by public or subsidized non-profit hospitals. Private hospitals provide mostly standard surgical treatment and other elective care. While the majority of general hospitals is at least partly publicly owned, the majority of specialist hospitals is privately owned.”
Source: De Pietro C, Camenzind P, Sturny I, Crivelli L, Edwards-Garavoglia S, Spranger A, Wittenbecher F, Quentin W. Switzerland: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2015; 17(4):1–288.
“Public hospitals are principally owned by the cantons although cantons may delegate responsibilities to municipalities (FSO, 2010). In fact, public hospitals are increasingly operated under the legal form of independent institutions (about 34% of all public hospitals in 2013) or joint stock companies (about 31%) (Berger et al., 2015). In public hospitals, there are three types of senior hospital management: there can be a joint committee consisting of a medical, a nursing and an administrative director; dual leadership by a medical and an administrative director; or a single chief executive officer (Berger et al., 2015).
“For private hospitals, it is possible to distinguish between hospitals run by a chief physician (Chefarztspital) and hospitals that cooperate with affiliated ambulatory attending physicians (Belegarztspital). Attending physicians usually work in ambulatory practices but have a cooperation agreement with a local hospital, where they may perform surgeries or attend to their medical patients during inpatient treatment. According to Swiss hospital statistics, there were 8250 ambulatory physicians with an affiliation as attending physicians in hospitals in 2012, which corresponds to about 42% of the 19,854 employed physicians working in hospitals (FOPH, 2015f). Comparing this number with FMH [Swiss Medical Association] statistics for the same year shows that this corresponds to about 50% of all ambulatory physicians (16,910 in 2012).”
Source: De Pietro C, Camenzind P, Sturny I, Crivelli L, Edwards-Garavoglia S, Spranger A, Wittenbecher F, Quentin W. Switzerland: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2015; 17(4):1–288.

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Page last updated October 7, 2023 by Doug McVay, Editor.