By joining forces, Visana, Swiss Medical Network, and the Canton of Bern are launching Switzerland’s first integrated care organization. This new basic insurance model, “VIVA,” has been rolled out in the Jura Arc region, leading to the creation of Réseau de l’ArcSA, a healthcare organization that offers its own health plan as an alternative to the traditional health insurance system. This system, with its two hospital sites in Moutier and Saint-Imier, its Medical Centers, and its Mental Health Center, offers residents of the Arc jurassien region medical services (prevention, primary care, hospital services, and elderly care) along with a corresponding health insurance product. The Réseau de l’Arc healthcare organization will manage the health capital of individuals who choose this health plan in place of their traditional basic health insurance, with its primary mission being to preserve their health.
Antoine Hubert, Managing Director of the Genolier Innovation Hub and Founder and Director of Swiss Medical Network, explains: “With Visana, we have found the ideal insurance partner to implement our vision of creating the first integrated healthcare organization in Switzerland. Our goal is to provide coordinated medical and insurance services through a single organization to ensure better quality of care for our patients while helping to reduce costs. Several examples from Spain, such as Ribera Salud, and from the United States, such as Kaiser Permanente, clearly demonstrate that this is possible. With this first fully integrated healthcare organization, we aim to provide answers and propose solutions so that all of Switzerland can benefit in the future from a high-quality healthcare system at lower costs.”
Visana will thus contribute, alongside Swiss Medical Network and more broadly the AEVIS VICTORIA SA Group and the healthcare sector of which the Genolier Innovation Hub is a part, to the creation and development of a new healthcare paradigm where the patient is at the center of our thinking and innovation is at the heart of our processes.
Innovation in the service of the patient as the link between the Genolier Innovation Hub and Visana
The Genolier Innovation Hub, whose infrastructure is owned by Infracore, represents an investment of nearly 70 million Swiss francs. Spanning an area of 25,000 square meters, it will host a variety of companies dedicated to innovation in the healthcare sector, with the primary goal of improving and accelerating patient care solutions. Unprecedented and unique within the Swiss medical ecosystem, the Genolier Innovation Hub embodies a new biomedical dynamic bridging research and clinical practice. Featuring a 300-seat auditorium and state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment, this platform will be dedicated to innovation, research and development, and training, and will host companies from all sectors of the healthcare industry, research, medical technology, pharmaceuticals, and the biosciences.
Several partners have already confirmed their intention to join the Hub as early as spring 2024 by investing over 30 million Swiss francs:
-Accuray: A global leader in high-precision radiation therapy, Accuray will transform the Genolier Innovation Hub into a global training center where clients can receive hands-on training and familiarize themselves with advanced radiation therapy techniques under the guidance of renowned specialists using its CyberKnife® and Radixact® systems.
-Johnson & Johnson Innovation: Supports innovation in the healthcare sector through investment in research and development, acquisitions, and collaboration with external partners that impact patients’ lives, and works with the Genolier Innovation Hub to identify startups.
-Clinique de Genolier: Offers comprehensive, personalized care based on the latest advances in medical research and will open a new oncology department equipped with Accuray’s latest state-of-the-art technology.
-General Electric Healthcare: Offers a comprehensive range of solutions designed to improve the diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of diseases and will open a nuclear medicine department within the Hub.
-Philips: Approaches medical care as a connected system by providing clinicians within the Hub’s network with the tools they need to make accurate diagnoses and deliver personalized treatment. Philips is establishing a presence there for its clients to create a continuous data flow that benefits all stakeholders in healthcare.
- SFITS: The Swiss Foundation for Innovation and Training in Surgery, a multidisciplinary platform, is collaborating with the Hub to simulate real-world surgical training conditions in an educational and innovative way.
- IRCAD: The Institute for Research Against Cancers of the Digestive System offers an exceptional training environment, welcoming over 8,800 surgeons from all surgical specialties each year, which will perfectly complement the training offerings that the Genolier Innovation Hub aims to provide.
- And many more…
Genolier Innovation Hub operates the entire site and also makes its facilities available for events and conferences, offering state-of-the-art services in a welcoming setting. The Hub’s central core will consist of a spacious 300-seat auditorium equipped with a state-of-the-art audiovisual system. Among its standout features, LED walls will enable fully immersive, three-dimensional presentations. The calendar is open—book your events starting in July 2024!
Angelo Eggli, CEO of Visana, explains: “The year 2024 will mark the launch of two major projects in the Swiss healthcare sector: our VIVA system on January 1 in Switzerland and the opening of the Genolier Innovation Hub in the spring. It was therefore important to me to give my teams a ‘sneak peek’ of this space, as it embodies the values of innovation, progress, and humanism that I wish to foster within our organization.”
About Visana
Visana is one of Switzerland’s leading health and accident insurers. It offers compulsory health insurance (AOS) under the Health Insurance Act (LAMal), supplemental insurance and property insurance under the Insurance Contract Act (LCA), and accident insurance under the Accident Insurance Act (LAA). In total, Visana has approximately 837,500 private customers and 16,000 corporate customers. Visana employs approximately 1,400 people at its headquarters in Bern and in some 52 branches throughout Switzerland. To learn more, visit www.visana.ch or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.
About Genolier Innovation Hub SA
Genolier Innovation Hub is a future scientific and medical platform spanning over 25,000 m² open to international healthcare players in the fields of medtech, pharmacology, digital technologies, and biosciences. With a mission focused on translational research, the development and presentation of innovations, and education, this Hub aims to be a central hub for the medical community, early-stage startups, companies specializing in pharmacology, medtech, and the biosciences, as well as hospitals, clinics, and educational institutions at both the national and international levels. This large-scale project is taking shape, with construction set to begin in June 2021 and the official opening scheduled for spring 2024. To view the construction progress live, click on the live webcam. Watch the video of the Genolier Innovation Hub, which is also available on the website and on LinkedIn.
About Swiss Medical Network
Swiss Medical Network is one of the two leading private groups of clinics and hospitals in Switzerland. More than 2,300 physicians and 3,900 employees work across 21 clinics and hospitals, as well as in over 60 outpatient centers, spread across 14 cantons and the country’s three main linguistic regions. The group covers the entire medical spectrum and operates both listed and contract hospitals. The facilities have a total of approximately 1,500 beds, and more than 67,000 surgical procedures are performed each year. Since 2021, Swiss Medical Network has been the majority shareholder of Hôpital du Jura bernois SA. Swiss Medical Network is a 90% subsidiary (direct and indirect) of AEVIS VICTORIA SA, listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange.
About AEVIS VICTORIA SA
AEVIS VICTORIA SA (AEVIS) invests in personal services, healthcare, hospitality, life sciences, and lifestyle. AEVIS’s main holdings are Swiss Medical Network SA (90%, directly and indirectly), the only private Swiss hospital network present in the country’s three main linguistic regions; Victoria-Jungfrau AG, a hotel chain operating ten high-end hotels in Switzerland and abroad; Infracore SA (30%, directly and indirectly), a subsidiary dedicated to medical infrastructure and owner of the Genolier Innovation Hub building (for more information, visit www.infracore.ch); Swiss Hotel Properties SA, a real estate segment dedicated to hotels, and Nescens SA, a brand dedicated to prevention and better aging. AEVIS is listed on the Swiss Reporting segment of SIX Swiss Exchange (AEVS.SW). For more information, visit www.aevis.com or follow us on LinkedIn.
