The turnaround is real USZ turns positive

A huge excavation pit is gaping in the heart of Zurich. The new hospital campus will cost almost a billion. A further 1.3 billion will follow over the next 25 years. Who is paying for it? The hospital itself. This is precisely why the current figures are so crucial and so encouraging.

Anyone driving through the Hochschulquartier will see it immediately. Cranes. Building pits. Large construction site. Campus Mitte is being built and with it the ambition to redefine cutting-edge medicine in the long term. The investments are underway. The question has long been, how will the balance sheet support this? Now there is an answer.

The turnaround is real
36 million francs profit. For the first time since 2019. A year earlier, a loss of 31 million francs. The contrast is clear and the direction is right.
Inpatient cases rose by just under 3 percent, outpatient visits by 5 percent to around 882,000. More patients, better capacity utilization, more consistent processes. The result is no coincidence. The turnaround is real. The work has only just begun.

Digitalization is paying off
Since CEO Monika Jänicke took the helm in 2023, the clear strategy “USZ 2030” has been in place. More efficient processes, greater digitalization, focused medicine. The EBITDA margin rose from 2.9 to 6.6 percent. Strong, but not yet at the finish line. As the owner, the canton is demanding 10 percent. At the same pace, this can be achieved in 2026. The target for the equity ratio, just under 40%, has already been met.

The canton is moving with
Investments are running in parallel with the increase in earnings. Around CHF 100 million was invested in real estate in both 2023 and 2024. The canton is supporting the project and is borrowing CHF 690 million on the capital market. This at better conditions than the hospital itself would ever receive and passes the money on.
The retained earnings, which fell to under 200 million francs in 2024, have now risen again to around 230 million francs. The cushion is growing.

Not just the USZ
The positive trend is not an isolated case. Winterthur Integrated Psychiatry closed 2025 with a profit of CHF 1.8 million. After red figures in the previous year. Patient numbers up 5 percent. This shows that cantonal healthcare institutions are responding to cost pressure with structure, efficiency and clarity.