Project

Swiss Medical Board

EBP and Dialog Ethik run the Swiss Medical Board agency office and develop the bases for the evaluation of diagnostic procedures and medical intervention.

The Swiss Medical Board is a body independent of the central administration, service providers and the industry. Its task is to analyse diagnostic procedures and therapeutic interventions from a medicinal, economic, ethical and legal point of view. Essentially, it involves an assessment of the cost-effectiveness of medical services.
Recommendations are formulated for the attention of the political decision-makers and the service providers.

The Medical Board began its work in Spring 2008 as a pilot project. Since January 2011 the Swiss Medical Board has been established throughout Switzerland and is underpinned by the “Board of Trustees of the Swiss Medical Board” made up of representatives of the Gesundheitsdirektorenkonferenz GDK (Swiss Conference of Cantonal Ministers of Public Health), the Verbindung der Schweizer Ärztinnen und Ärzte FMH (Swiss Medical association), and the Schweizerische Akademie der Medizinischen Wissenschaften SAMW (Swiss Academy of Medicinal Sciences).

In 2011, for example, the Medical Board investigated the value of the PSA values in the early detection of prostate cancer. It compared whether determining the PSA value in men with relevant symptoms without further risk factors had a demonstrable benefit compared with those men who did not have the PSA test. A further questionnaire investigated the effectiveness of surgical procedures (vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty) for treating osteoporosis-related vertebral fractures.

In 2012 the Swiss Medical Board examined three further issues.

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