Where are the 'best' hospitals in Switzerland in 2024?
Switzerland’s has an international reputation for great healthcare, so it might not be surprising that 10 Swiss hospitals have been ranked among the ‘best in the world’.
The latest World’s Best Hospitals ranking from US-based Newsweek and global data firm Statista has revealed which of Switzerland’s hospitals are seen as the best.
Universitätsspital Zürich was the top ranked, making it to number 10 out of the top 231, with Centre hospitalier universitaire vaudois (CHUV) in Lausanne at number 13, closely followed by Universitätsspital Basel at number 14. Hospitals in Basel, Geneva, Bern, and Aarau also made the list.
The Swiss hospitals that made the list included:
Universitätsspital Zürich (10)
With around 900 hospital beds, the USZ is one of the largest hospitals in Switzerland and climbed two places since last year’s ranking. It is the only Swiss hospital to offer certain treatments, and has been recognised for its pioneering use of AI in neurosurgery. It was also recently the site of the world's first reconstructive operation on the central lymphatic system using a microsurgery robot.
Centre hospitalier universitaire vaudois (CHUV), Lausanne (13)
The CHUV is one of five Swiss academic public health care centres and plays a leading role in medical care, research, teaching, and training, in collaboration with the University of Lausanne. Despite suffering a heavy deficit in 2022, its new director is focused on improvements already being implemented to return to financial sustainability.
Universitätsspital Basel (14)
The USB is the smallest university hospital in Switzerland, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in leading neurology research. Plans for an almost 1.7 billion franc new ‘Health Campus’ have proved controversial.
Hôpitaux Universitaires Genève (HUG) (63)
The HUG has expanded in multiple directions recently to accommodate increasing demand, including a new adult emergency room, a renovated otolaryngology and head and neck surgery department, and a new primary care medicine centre.
Hirslanden - Klinik Hirslanden, Zurich (72)
The Hirslanden Clinic is part of Switzerland’s private Hirslanden group. The extent to which Hirslanden is shaping the Swiss hospital landscape is particularly evident in the field of cardiac medicine, according to Handelszeitung, with six of the 25 best-placed cardiology clinics belonging to Hirslanden.
READ ALSO: Everything you need to know about hospital care in Switzerland?
St. Claraspital, Basel (123)
An acute care hospital, Claraspital specialises in cancer, blood diseases and tumours at a facility that was fully renovated less than two years ago.
Lindenhofspital, Bern (142)
Lindenhofspital’s history stretches back more than 100 years. The hospital is currently trialling a new way of training nurses and recently saw pioneering surgical treatment of uterine prolapse.
Hirslanden Klinik Aarau (143)
The other Hirslanden clinic to make the list was in Aarau, the largest private hospital in the Swiss plateau between Bern and Zurich with about 10,000 patients and a small expansion underway.
Clinique Générale-Beaulieu, Geneva (197)
A private clinic founded in 1899, Générale-Beaulieu specialises in visceral surgery, urology, gynaecology, nuclear medicine, oncology, radio-oncology, neurosurgery and orthopaedic surgery.
Inselspital - Universitätsspital Bern (207)
The new main building at Bern’s Inselspital – a 63-metre-high-rise with 3,254 rooms over 18 floors – became the country’s most modern hospital building on completion last year. Six months later, the latest project has included a new IT system allowing patients to access their own treatment documents through a dedicated app. The venue also recently became home to the first tailor-made laboratory of its kind in a clinical environment in Europe where X-ray images of a moving person can be taken from two different directions at the same time.
Newsweek ranked 2,400 hospitals across 30 countries in total through a combination of their national rank, the number of recommendations received through an online survey of more than 85,000 medical experts, public data from post-hospitalisation patient satisfaction surveys, quality metrics such as hygiene and patient-doctor ratio, as well as a Statista survey on whether hospitals use Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs). The list did not include specialised hospitals.
There are more than 280 hospitals throughout Switzerland, and the general level of care is excellent, but what are the different types of healthcare facilities and what can you expect from each?
What medical treatment foreigners are entitled to if they fall ill in Switzerland depends on whether you are a resident of Switzerland, or are just passing through the country, and while health insurance falls under a Swiss federal law, each canton is responsible for administering the system on its own territory.
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The latest World’s Best Hospitals ranking from US-based Newsweek and global data firm Statista has revealed which of Switzerland’s hospitals are seen as the best.
Universitätsspital Zürich was the top ranked, making it to number 10 out of the top 231, with Centre hospitalier universitaire vaudois (CHUV) in Lausanne at number 13, closely followed by Universitätsspital Basel at number 14. Hospitals in Basel, Geneva, Bern, and Aarau also made the list.
The Swiss hospitals that made the list included:
Universitätsspital Zürich (10)
With around 900 hospital beds, the USZ is one of the largest hospitals in Switzerland and climbed two places since last year’s ranking. It is the only Swiss hospital to offer certain treatments, and has been recognised for its pioneering use of AI in neurosurgery. It was also recently the site of the world's first reconstructive operation on the central lymphatic system using a microsurgery robot.
Centre hospitalier universitaire vaudois (CHUV), Lausanne (13)
The CHUV is one of five Swiss academic public health care centres and plays a leading role in medical care, research, teaching, and training, in collaboration with the University of Lausanne. Despite suffering a heavy deficit in 2022, its new director is focused on improvements already being implemented to return to financial sustainability.
Universitätsspital Basel (14)
The USB is the smallest university hospital in Switzerland, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in leading neurology research. Plans for an almost 1.7 billion franc new ‘Health Campus’ have proved controversial.
Hôpitaux Universitaires Genève (HUG) (63)
The HUG has expanded in multiple directions recently to accommodate increasing demand, including a new adult emergency room, a renovated otolaryngology and head and neck surgery department, and a new primary care medicine centre.
Hirslanden - Klinik Hirslanden, Zurich (72)
The Hirslanden Clinic is part of Switzerland’s private Hirslanden group. The extent to which Hirslanden is shaping the Swiss hospital landscape is particularly evident in the field of cardiac medicine, according to Handelszeitung, with six of the 25 best-placed cardiology clinics belonging to Hirslanden.
READ ALSO: Everything you need to know about hospital care in Switzerland?
St. Claraspital, Basel (123)
An acute care hospital, Claraspital specialises in cancer, blood diseases and tumours at a facility that was fully renovated less than two years ago.
Lindenhofspital, Bern (142)
Lindenhofspital’s history stretches back more than 100 years. The hospital is currently trialling a new way of training nurses and recently saw pioneering surgical treatment of uterine prolapse.
Hirslanden Klinik Aarau (143)
The other Hirslanden clinic to make the list was in Aarau, the largest private hospital in the Swiss plateau between Bern and Zurich with about 10,000 patients and a small expansion underway.
Clinique Générale-Beaulieu, Geneva (197)
A private clinic founded in 1899, Générale-Beaulieu specialises in visceral surgery, urology, gynaecology, nuclear medicine, oncology, radio-oncology, neurosurgery and orthopaedic surgery.
Inselspital - Universitätsspital Bern (207)
The new main building at Bern’s Inselspital – a 63-metre-high-rise with 3,254 rooms over 18 floors – became the country’s most modern hospital building on completion last year. Six months later, the latest project has included a new IT system allowing patients to access their own treatment documents through a dedicated app. The venue also recently became home to the first tailor-made laboratory of its kind in a clinical environment in Europe where X-ray images of a moving person can be taken from two different directions at the same time.
Newsweek ranked 2,400 hospitals across 30 countries in total through a combination of their national rank, the number of recommendations received through an online survey of more than 85,000 medical experts, public data from post-hospitalisation patient satisfaction surveys, quality metrics such as hygiene and patient-doctor ratio, as well as a Statista survey on whether hospitals use Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs). The list did not include specialised hospitals.
There are more than 280 hospitals throughout Switzerland, and the general level of care is excellent, but what are the different types of healthcare facilities and what can you expect from each?
What medical treatment foreigners are entitled to if they fall ill in Switzerland depends on whether you are a resident of Switzerland, or are just passing through the country, and while health insurance falls under a Swiss federal law, each canton is responsible for administering the system on its own territory.
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