Impact on patient safety Swissmedic uncovers shortcomings in Swiss hospitals

Swissmedic has carried out investigations in 25 hospitals in the area of medical devices and found deficiencies. They already made this observation in 2021 and 2022, but nothing has changed.

In 2023, Swissmedic carried out inspections in 25 Swiss hospitals in the area of medical devices and identified deficiencies. These have a direct or indirect impact on production and therefore patient safety.

Swissmedic announced in its annual report on Monday that there was a particular need for action in the areas of quality management, maintenance, training and further training of the staff involved and the infrastructure of the reprocessing departments.

Deficiencies already emerged in 2021 and 2022

These deficiencies had already been observed in 2021 and 2022. Since then, no trend towards a significant improvement in quality has been identified, the Agency said.

It is essential that hospitals introduce improvement measures in order to meet the legal requirements, it added. In order to ensure patient safety, Swissmedic has intensified monitoring and cooperation with specialists to improve quality assurance. So-called "good practices" are to be developed jointly.

Swissmedic monitors the maintenance, reprocessing and monitoring systems for recording serious incidents in Swiss hospitals in the area of medical devices. In 2023, the Therapeutic Products Institute carried out inspections in 25 hospitals.