From 2023 to 2025, Swissnoso conducted a pilot project on behalf of the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) on the surveillance of hospital-acquired pneumonia in non-ventilated patients (CHAPS – Swiss non-ventilator-associated hospital-acquired pneumonia surveillance).

Non-ventilator-associated hospital-acquired pneumonia (nvHAP) is one of the most common healthcare-associated infections. As all non-intubated hospitalised patients are susceptible to nvHAP, manual, hospital-wide, continuous infection surveillance is impractical. Semi-automated surveillance systems, in which computerised algorithms preselect patients for manual surveillance, can reduce the effort required for manual surveillance and thus enable continuous nvHAP surveillance.

In a pilot project on semi-automated nvHAP surveillance, Swissnoso first clarified the time and personnel resources required to establish and implement semi-automated surveillance in a hospital. The project also identified the conditions that facilitate its implementation. Secondly, the sensitivity of semi-automated nvHAP surveillance compared to manual surveillance was clarified, as was the degree of interrater agreement (the degree of agreement between two manual reviewers).

The pilot project was successfully completed in March 2025. The results showed that implementing and operating a semi-automated nvHAP surveillance system is feasible in Swiss acute care hospitals, particularly those with pre-processed data and an IT and IPC team experienced in carrying out surveillance projects. The FOPH and Swissnoso therefore support the national introduction of semi-automated nvHAP surveillance. This is to take place within the framework of Swissnoso's central digital IPC Platform, which is currently under construction.

You can find out more about the IPC Platform and the IPC quality initiative: Link (German)

Status January 2026