Switzerland falls behind in a study on digital competitiveness
According to a study, the Corona pandemic has shown that Switzerland is well positioned in terms of digitization. However, digitization experts warn that major efforts are still needed if Switzerland is not to fall behind comparable countries such as Denmark and Sweden.
According to the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2020, Switzerland has fallen out of the top five countries with the best digital competitiveness in an international comparison. After Hong Kong, the country now occupies sixth place.
The United States, Singapore and Denmark occupy the podium positions, according to the rankings released Thursday.
This year's study by the Lausanne-based IMD World Competitiveness Center (WCC) used the Corona pandemic as a case study to examine how the economies of the 63 countries surveyed are using digital technologies that could help address the health crisis.
Corona as a "digital stress test
The Corona pandemic is a kind of "digital stress test" for every nation, Martin Vetterli, President of the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne EPFL summarized the study results on Thursday. Only under the conditions of a lockdown and collaboration in the home office does the actual state of an economy in terms of digitalization become apparent, he said.
When it comes to the digitization of the Swiss healthcare system, the professor of computer science and communications gives the Swiss authorities a rather mixed report. Although the example of contact tracing, which has worked well so far, shows that the country is certainly capable of mastering challenges, the "general digital state" of the healthcare system is still lagging behind many countries such as Denmark or Sweden.
Healthcare still has a lot of potential
"The Covid 19 pandemic was the ultimate wake-up call for Swiss health authorities in terms of digitization," added Marc Walder, initiator of Digitalswitzerland and CEO of media company Ringier.
He, too, draws a mixed interim conclusion regarding the latest data in the report: "On the one hand, we can be proud of many things we got up and running promptly in the wake of the Corona crisis. On the other hand, he said, the height of the pandemic showed that many operations still had a long way to go in terms of digital potential." Walder cited as an example, for example, the use of fax machines to transmit infection figures.
Another concrete example, he said, is the electronic patient dossier: "There is still a great deal of unused optimization potential here, on which all stakeholders agree, but the necessary political enforcement continues to fail." (SDA)
