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EPHA awards 2022 – The prize for the most advanced hospital in VBHC goes to Hôpital de la Tour

01 Jul 2022

A blog by Ilaria Giannico (Secretary General of the UEHP), on behalf of the European Alliance for Value in Health

This year the UEHP (European Union of Private Hospitals) and the APHP (Portuguese Association of Private Hospitals), in partnership with EY, organised the 1st edition of the European Private Hospital Awards (EPHA). This aims to showcase and support innovative and outstanding European health projects, across seven main categories:

  • Best Prevention Initiative
  • Best Patient Focused Initiative
  • Greenest Hospital in Europe
  • Model of Clinical Innovation
  • Most Advanced Hospital in Value-Based Healthcare
  • Workplace Excellence
  • News Coverage of the Year

The winner of the category “Most Advanced Hospital in Value-Based Healthcare” is Hôpital de La Tour, in Switzerland.

In 2019, Hôpital de La Tour launched a hospital-wide initiative to implement the VBHC framework (following Michael Porter and Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg’s concept) to increase outcomes and quality for patients. Hôpital de La Tour’s goal was also to showcase the feasibility of VBHC approaches in private institutions, live true partnerships with payers and become one of the leading examples of VBHC in Switzerland and Europe.

This award from the EPHA recognises the efforts and pioneering projects undertaken over the past three years to drive excellence in care, continuous improvement, and interdisciplinary commitment to our patients.

VBHC is being rolled out globally in the most innovative healthcare institutions. It is an approach based on the medical outcome and its impact on the patient’s quality of life, as well as on the associated costs. It not only allows for the development of very high-quality care, but also for the evaluation of the effectiveness of a treatment in terms of costs. VBHC is thus the best expression of the sustainable medicine that health systems urgently need today.

Hôpital de La Tour has made the recovery of quality of life a strategic priority for its patients, and embarked on this approach 3 years ago. On the basis of a new organisation by interdisciplinary centre of excellence, the collection and monitoring of medical results have been put in place, as well as the measurement of costs per treatment. These results were compared with the best practices in the scientific literature. At the same time, the institution initiated the development of a digital tool to support the measurement of patient outcomes, and established several strategic partnerships with other hospitals or actors engaged in a similar approach.

Today, Hôpital de La Tour is one of the pioneering healthcare institutions in Switzerland and internationally in the implementation of VBHC. Rodolphe Eurin, General Manager of La Tour Hospital, commented: “This award is a fantastic recognition of the work done by the teams of doctors, carers, and projects over the last few years to improve quality for the benefit of our patients. I hope it will be a call to all healthcare professionals who are passionate about innovation to join the unique environment we have created at La Tour as pioneers of VBHC in Europe.”

As member of the European Alliance for Value in Health (EAVH), UEHP is committed to showcasing best practices in Value Based Healthcare from our private hospitals all over Europe. We aim to foster new and innovative ways of care delivery, as well as new payment schemes as incentives for hospitals and professionals to reward value and outcomes that matter to the patients., with the ultimate goal of increasing patient satisfaction.

Document: For more information on the full list of hospital awards and winners, please click here: