Researchers can now easily discover what clinical health data exists in Switzerland and how to access it, while fully respecting patient privacy. This major milestone is enabled by the release of standard descriptions, or metadata, for the SPHN Federated Clinical Routine Dataset. The dataset spans 800,000 patients and billions of harmonized data points – from demographics and diagnoses to allergies and oncology data – all sharing the same clinical meaning and technical format across institutions.
A very large national dataset to advance personalized health and patient care
The SPHN Federated Clinical Routine Dataset is a foundational resource for health research studies and data-driven healthcare solutions. As of December 2025, it included:
About the Swiss Personalized Health Network (SPHN)
- 800,000+ patients who have consented to the reuse of their data for research;
- 6 university hospitals: Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, and Zurich (adult and children’s hospitals);
- 12.5 billion semantically harmonized data points, i.e. all sharing the same clinical meaning and technical format, covering:
- demographics;
- diagnoses and procedures;
- medications;
- laboratory tests, including microbiology;
- vital signs and clinical scores;
- allergies;
- intensive care and oncology data;
- biological samples.
All data and metadata fully adhere to FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) principles, and are aligned with international standards including the European Health Data Space (EHDS). The federated architecture, where patient-level data remain securely within each hospital, ensures strict protection of patient privacy.
Online discovery of clinical data across Switzerland
Participating hospitals map health data from their patients to SPHN schemas as well as international terminologies for describing clinical information, and provide the descriptive metadata to the central SPHN Metadata Catalog.
Researchers, clinicians and innovators can freely access this catalogue online to explore the types of data in the SPHN Federated Clinical Routine Dataset, as well as other health datasets generated in Switzerland. Information is also provided on how these data can be accessed for research.
New health institutions join SPHN
The participation of six new healthcare institutions in SPHN will further advance personalized health and patient care by increasing the amount of high-quality, standardized clinical data available for research. The recently onboarded institutions are:
- Cantonal Hospital Aarau (KSA)
- Cantonal Hospital Baden (KSB)
- Cantonal Hospital Lucerne (LUKS)
- Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale (EOC)
- Health Ostschweiz (H-OCH)
- the Swiss Cancer Institute (SCI)
Close collaboration across the Swiss health data ecosystem
The harmonized and interoperable SPHN Federated Clinical Routine Dataset represents eight years of close national collaboration, notably by the university hospitals and SPHN’s FAIR data specialists. Additional healthcare institutions can also contribute to the dataset by processing their data in the SPHN format.
New health institutions join SPHN
The participation of six new healthcare institutions in SPHN will further advance personalized health and patient care by increasing the amount of high-quality, standardized clinical data available for research. The recently onboarded institutions are:
- Cantonal Hospital Aarau (KSA)
- Cantonal Hospital Baden (KSB)
- Cantonal Hospital Lucerne (LUKS)
- Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale (EOC)
- Health Ostschweiz (H-OCH)
- the Swiss Cancer Institute (SCI)
