Clinic AI in Zug, what private clinics and health systems should know in 2026

The private care market in Zug

The canton grew by 1,238 people in 2025 to 134,977 residents, a rise of 0.9%, according to provisional federal figures published by the canton.¹ Baar alone accounted for 41% of that growth, adding 503 residents as new housing was completed.¹

At the end of 2025, 93,655 Swiss citizens and 41,322 foreign nationals made up the permanent resident population, a foreign share of 30.6%.¹ The share was highest in the town of Zug at 37.3% and in Walchwil at 36.1%, and lowest in Hünenberg at 20.2%.¹

English runs through working life. In 2022, 40.1% of employed Zug residents regularly spoke English at work, rising to 63.4% among senior managers and academic professions.²

The rules a Zug practice works under

The Gesundheitsdirektion licenses the practitioner. Under section 6 of the Zug Gesundheitsgesetz, anyone who diagnoses and treats illness on their own professional responsibility and on a commercial basis needs a Berufsausübungsbewilligung from the directorate.³

Section 36 sets the record. The licence holder keeps a continuously updated record for every patient covering information given, examination, diagnosis and treatment, and the author of each entry must be immediately visible.³ Electronic records must be properly dated and viewable at any time, changes must be stored so they can be traced, and security measures must keep the record to authorised people.³ The record is kept at least ten years after the last treatment and destroyed unprompted after twenty, and patients may view it without a fee or ask for a copy.³ In wai a note stays a draft until the clinician signs it, and every edit, approval and signature is written to the log.

The FADP governs the vendor. Article 9 allows processing to be handed to a processor only where the data is handled as the practice itself may handle it and no duty of confidentiality forbids it, and the practice must satisfy itself that the processor can guarantee data security.⁴ The processor may pass the work to a third party only with the practice's prior approval.⁴ Article 7 asks the practice to build data protection into processing from the planning stage.⁴ The FDPIC is the federal authority for data protection.⁵

Medical secrecy covers helpers too. Article 321 of the Criminal Code punishes doctors and their auxiliaries who disclose a secret entrusted to them in their profession, on complaint, with up to three years or a fine.⁶ A recording in the consult room starts with the patient's consent, and the consent form template gives the wording.

Zug patients can open their electronic patient record online from home, make their medical documents available to health professionals and manage who has access.⁷ wai is built to connect to the EPD. We set up your clinic's connection with you.

wai hosts each clinic's records in its own country, under that country's rules. We set this up with your clinic. wai is compliant with these rules and built for clinics in Zug. Zug patient records therefore stay on Swiss soil.

The languages Zug patients write in

English was the main language of 14.1% of residents aged 15 and over in 2022, up from under 2% in 2000.² In Walchwil the share was 27.3% and in the town of Zug 20.0%, while 70.2% of residents spoke Swiss German at home.² Serbo-Croatian languages at 3.4%, Spanish at 2.4% and Portuguese at 2.1% followed, and 17.5% of residents named more than one main language.²

wai reads any language, so the newly arrived family and the long-standing Zug patient each get a draft in their own language, approved by the practice before it goes.⁸

What a demo shows in Zug

The demo opens on an English email sent at 21.50 by a father whose family moved to Baar in August, asking for check-ups for both children before the ski season. A second message is a WhatsApp at 6.30 from a long-standing patient in Cham who needs to move Friday's follow-up.

Each message lands in its own patient thread, and wai checks which doctors are busy in Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar before drafting answers that match the language of each sender. The practice assistant approves them at 7.45. The father pays a deposit in Swiss francs by card or Apple Pay, the payment reaches the practice's own Stripe account, and the intake questionnaire follows his confirmation and receipt.

In the consult the doctor edits and signs the drafted note and the letter to the school doctor. The signature carries the doctor's name and the time, which is the visible authorship section 36 asks for.³

For health systems, insurers and the canton

Hospitals, insurers and cantonal services in Zug can own a system built on wai, carrying their brand and hosted in Switzerland. A single pathway with its success measures comes first, and the rights to data, configuration and models are settled in the contract, explained on the page for health systems and governments.

Where to start

First, list each signing clinician with the date their Gesundheitsdirektion licence was granted.³ Second, ask the vendor to list every subprocessor and give the practice's prior approval in writing, as article 9 requires.⁴

Third, check that edits to a signed note leave a trace and that retention is set between ten and twenty years.³ Fourth, agree the short sentence every doctor uses to ask before the scribe listens. Note how many of last month's messages arrived in English and how many after hours, and bring both numbers to a Zug demo. This summary of Zug and federal law reflects the texts as read on 15 October 2026, and the practice's adviser should confirm the details.

Frequently asked questions