The Swiss healthcare system is considered to be among the best performing healthcare systems among countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (OECD/WHO 2011; Commonwealth Fund 2014). Its citizens are highly satisfied with the health system (Interpharma, n.d.), mainly because of an almost unconstrained freedom of choice and overall large supply of healthcare providers and hospitals. However, a 2011 analysis of the Swiss healthcare system identified fragmented provision of services, along with lack of coordination and integration as major deficits and suggested that the relatively high healthcare expenditures were not being used efficiently. Whether Switzerland “receives value for money for its major financial investment in healthcare” (OECD/WHO 2011) is being questioned.
In this section, we focus on one cantonal programme, the “Programme cantonal Diabe`te” (PcD, Hagon-Traub et al. 2010), which was launched in 2010 in the canton of Vaud, a Swiss canton with a population of approximately 720,000 (about 10% of the Swiss population).