About us

The Centre for Rare Developmental Disorders Zurich is an interdisciplinary collaboration between several university institutions. It involves the University Children's Hospital Zurich, including Children's Rehabilitation Switzerland and the Spina Bifida Centre, the University Hospital Zurich, the Balgrist University Eye Clinic, the Psychiatric University Hospital, the Centre for Dental Medicine and the Institute of Medical Genetics at the University of Zurich.

The particular challenge in treating patients with rare physical, intellectual or neurological developmental disorders lies in the high complexity of the individual diseases, which often affect multiple organ systems and require multidisciplinary medical, surgical and psychiatric care throughout the patient's lifetime.

At ITHACA Zurich, we want to achieve clear structures and treatment plans, short distances and good coordination between individual specialists and clinics for the treatment of our patients with cognitive and/or physical impairments and their families, in order to provide needs-based, accessible, high-quality and cost-effective medical and therapeutic care. Short communication channels and good coordination between the individual specialists and clinics in order to ensure needs-based, accessible, high-quality and cost-effective medical and therapeutic care for children and adults with rare developmental disorders.

We treat over 1,000 patients with rare developmental disorders every year. Our core tasks include:

• Coordinated multidisciplinary pre- and postnatal diagnostics and a comprehensive infrastructure for inpatient and outpatient assessment, care and treatment of obstetric, paediatric and adult patients and their families.
• Continuous improvement of diagnostics and disease-specific medical care in line with the latest scientific findings.
• Development and provision of individual treatment plans for case- and disease-specific diagnostics, care and treatment.
• Access to and harmonisation of interdisciplinary expertise, research and further training within the centre and the SwissITHACA network.
• Improved networking and information exchange with and among patients (families) and patient organisations.