PD KD Dr. med. Michael Büttcher (Kinderspital/ KidZ)
mit Dr. med. Dr. sc. Nora Fritschi (Kinderspital/ KidZ und Uni Luzern) und
Dr. Javier Montoya (LUKS)
Bridging the Past and Future: Transforming Analog Vaccination Records to Digital Data with AI to improve Patient Care and enable Research
In Switzerland, vaccination records are still largely analog, handwritten, and fragmented—posing challenges for healthcare providers and putting patients at risk due to incomplete information.
Our project, led by a team of clinicians, AI researchers, and IT specialists at Luzerner Kantonsspital (LUKS), aims to modernize this system by digitizing historic vaccination cards using artificial intelligence and optical character recognition (OCR).
A pilot study of 300 vaccination cards at the Children’s Hospital achieved approx. 80% accuracy in identifying vaccine data. We will enhance this AI model to reach over 95% accuracy and integrating it into electronic health records (LUKIS and meinLUKS).
Furthermore, a chatbot-based Medical Question Answering tool will assist clinicians in identifying vaccination gaps and guide decisions based on the Swiss Vaccination Schedule including travel vaccination recommendations.
The project will scale to other hospitals using Epic software, enabling national interoperability. Key benefits include faster access to data, improved patient care, and support for research and public health monitoring.
Two embedded research studies will assess:
- Vaccination gaps in chronically ill children.
- Shifts in paediatric respiratory illnesses post-RSV vaccine introduction.
This initiative addresses a critical gap in Switzerland’s healthcare infrastructure by making vaccination data accessible, actionable, and research ready. The team is building a collaboration with Swiss Post Sanela Health Ag to assist the national Swiss e-Vaccination initiative.