How a Swiss SME is helping to digitalize Germany’s public healthcare system
VSHN wins public tender for GA-Lotse – a milestone for digital sovereignty and open source in public administration
Digitalizing Germany’s public healthcare infrastructure is a massive undertaking – complex, federally organized, and security-critical. That makes it all the more remarkable when a small, highly specialized company from Switzerland plays a central role: VSHN – The DevOps Company won the 2024 public tender issued by the City of Frankfurt am Main to host the unified software platform for Hesse’s public health departments. Since then, VSHN has been supporting the rollout of the digital infrastructure behind the open source GA-Lotse project.
VSHN was able to build the infrastructure in a short time – the public launch took place on schedule on October 1, 2024.
From Swiss DevOps specialist to digitalization partner in Germany
VSHN contributes its expertise in cloud-native operations, DevSecOps, and open source architecture – providing the GA-Lotse platform as a secure, scalable managed service. The project demonstrates clearly: small companies with the right know-how, experience, and modern practices can achieve great things – even in the highly regulated public sector.
GA-Lotse: Digitalization with sovereignty
GA-Lotse was created through EU funding aimed at modernizing public health offices. It deliberately focuses on:
- Open source instead of vendor lock-in
- Sovereign cloud instead of hyperscalers
- Zero-trust architecture instead of outdated IT
- Federated structures instead of centralization
Each county in Hesse runs its own GA-Lotse instance – compliant with data protection laws, adaptable, and interoperable. At the same time, anonymized statistics can be securely shared with state authorities. This model combines autonomy with collaboration – a prime example of digital sovereignty.
Why Frankfurt chose VSHN
By awarding the platform engineering and DevOps operations contract to VSHN, Frankfurt chose not just technology, but a mindset: openness, transparency, collaboration, and security at the highest level.
This SaaS-based approach relieves local health departments from infrastructure burdens, giving them more time to focus on their core mission – and lays the foundation for a modern, resilient IT infrastructure in the public sector.
A project with impact
The successful implementation of GA-Lotse shows what is possible when European values like data protection, sovereignty, and open source meet modern IT expertise. For VSHN, this is not just a technical project, but a contribution to the digital resilience of public infrastructure.
“I’m proud to help shape such an important part of our society together with our partners,” says Aarno Aukia, Co-Founder of VSHN.
Conclusion
Digital sovereignty starts with bold decisions – such as the choice to rely on open technologies. The fact that a Swiss SME like VSHN can help drive this development in Germany shows: expertise knows no borders. And neither does successful collaboration.
Read the full Success Story
Learn how VSHN and the Frankfurt Public Health Authority are driving digital transformation – read the full Success Story now.
