Medical quality indicators in the area of nursing homes - data 2024

Description

The fifth edition of the publication «Medical quality indicators» in the area of nursing homes, published by the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) in the fourth quarter of 2025, contains information on 1,304 nursing homes. The figures are based on data from 2024 provided by nursing homes as part of assessments of care needs or care documentation and submitted to the FOPH via the Federal Statistical Office (FSO). The publication based on article 59a of the Health Insurance Act (RS 832.10). Based on this article, care providers must provide the competent federal authorities with the data required to monitor the application of the provisions of the Health Insurance Act concerning the economic nature and quality of care services. Nursing homes in Switzerland are thus obliged to provide the data required to calculate medical quality indicators (Art. 59a, para. 1, letter f Health Insurance Act). In application of Art. 59a of the Health Insurance Act, suitable quality indicators were developed, evaluated and six were selected in 2009 - 2018 as part of a pilot project led by the federation ARTISET (formerly CURAVIVA Switzerland) with the FOPH, the Swiss Conference of Cantonal Health Directors (GDK) and the FSO in the project committee. The publication shows the values of these six indicators for each of the nursing homes included.

The quality of the data 2024 provided has been high enough to allow risk-adjusted indicators to be calculated at the nursing home level. In this context, the indicators represent relatively well the quality of the care services based on the Health Insurance Act provided in nursing homes and are comparable from one nursing home to another. The selected medical quality indicators can therefore be used as tools for comparing the quality of the care services based on the Health Insurance Act provided in the areas measured. However, they cannot fully capture the quality of the institution and cannot be reduced to this. They do not reflect the overall structural or process quality, nor do they reflect other quality aspects such as patient satisfaction or quality of life in the homes. For this reason, the selected medical quality indicators can in no way be used to draw up a ranking list or a scale of the overall quality of nursing homes. They should be used to identify any quality gaps in the nursinh homes in order to examine and exploit the potential for improvement in the respective institution. In this sense, this publication should also be seen as an aid and basis for discussion for interested parties.