The challenges our healthcare system is facing are massive: continuously rising health insurance costs, the financial burden of non-communicable diseases accounting for around 80% of all healthcare expenditure, and a healthcare system developed for the last century and, therefore, primarily for acute illnesses (1). The common entry ticket into the healthcare system: you must be sick. Relevant and established concepts from other industries, such as predictive maintenance, lead a shadowy existence in healthcare (2, 3). Only 1.5% of all healthcare expenditures are spent on prevention in Switzerland, even though risk factors for many non-communicable diseases that can be influenced are known (4, 5, 6).

Against this background, the Digital Health Interventions team (Prof. Kowatsch) is investigating how technology can be used, especially for primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention, to detect critical health conditions (Digital Biomarker Development), to intervene as precisely as possible (Digital Therapeutics) and ultimately successfully establishing it in the healthcare market (Emerging Business Models in Digital Health). In addition, students can develop prototypes of digital therapeutics in a practical manner and close exchange with clinical experts (Digital Health in Practice, Digital Therapeutics Project, or Optimizing Digital Therapeutics) and critically reflect on current trends such as Large Language Model AI chatbots (Digital Health Forum). Corresponding seminars for doctoral students are also offered together with Prof. Dr. Anna Elsner, Prof. Dr. Alexander Geissler, and Prof. Dr. Janna Hastings (Health Care Research Seminar Series) as well as with Prof. Fleisch and Prof. Wortmann (Operation and Information Management).

With respect to our ​​continuing education efforts, Giuliana Breu, Executive Director at CDHI, plans to offer the already successful CAS in Digital Health from 2024, next to ETH Zurich, also via the University of St.Gallen and the University of Zurich. Moreover, a short course on Digital Health is planned for 2025.

Finally, from 2024 onwards, research and teaching by the Digital Health Interventions team will increasingly focus on the topics of female health (Dr. Marcia Nißen), metabolic health (Dr. Mia Jovanova), and health equity (Anja Bischof).