1stJointPHDayCH: Pierre Alain Schnegg

Dear hosts, dear organizers, ladies and gentlemen, why am I, as a politician, interested in personalized health? What benefits does the combination of biosciences and information technology offer to a health and social services director? Imagine empowered, self-determined individuals in times of health and illness. What impact will this have on society? How do we shape future health and aging planning? Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts. For years, I have followed developments in this field with great interest. As a former software entrepreneur, big data and high processing power are familiar to me. The health and social system in the canton of Bern is in transition, and I am deeply involved—especially as chairman of a regional hospital. In the future, doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, and fitness centers will only have customers; the patient as we know them today will hardly exist. New customers will approach providers with very specific needs. The foundation for personalized healthcare is being laid by researchers, analysts, and computer scientists in genomics, biotechnology, and data analysis. We already know a lot about diseases and their progression, but we do not yet have data focused on each individual. The paradigm shift: we must collect data and make it centrally available for genomics and tumor research to validate results. You, ladies and gentlemen, are involved in the new federal initiative, actively or passively. As a politician, it is important to me that your research improves people's well-being and health. Personalization means tailored treatments for each person's disease course, but it also refers to population-wide well-being and quality of life, which vary by age, communication, risk, and geographic, social, political, and philosophical factors. More people are seeking tools to control their health and well-being. There are now about 1,000 health apps providing data for personalized health. People are proactively seeking these tools outside the formal healthcare system. As health director, I am concerned with using networked data to plan supply networks and human resources optimally, generate added value in healthcare, especially for aging and care given demographic trends, health promotion, universal coverage, and support for medicine and disability care. I envision a self-responsible, health-conscious citizen who voluntarily provides important encrypted data. We connect the latest medical research and medtech with people, providing infrastructure and services tailored to life stages. Ladies and gentlemen, you are laying the foundation for tomorrow's healthcare. I wish you, us, and Switzerland great success, and I am happy to support you actively. On behalf of politics, I thank you for your commitment, because we all share the same goal: the well-being of the people.