For most organizations, Microsoft Teams is where the unified communications conversation starts. IPW was no different. With roughly 1,000 employees across a complex psychiatric care environment, Teams was the natural starting point and, for most staff, the preferred one. 

It did not survive the compliance review. 

IPW operates under the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP), which classifies health data as sensitive personal data requiring heightened protection. Where data lives and who can access it under foreign law is not a preference for a psychiatric institution. It is a baseline condition. The specific conflict is the US CLOUD Act of 2018. In November 2025, Privatim, the Conference of Swiss Cantonal Data Protection Officers, concluded that the Cloud Act can compel US providers to hand over customer data to US authorities without following international mutual legal assistance procedures, even for data stored in Swiss data centers, and that Microsoft 365 does not meet the required standard in its default configuration. 

1000

Employees across a complex psychiatric care environment

Reaching the required licensing tier cost ~ CHF 500,000 per year.

The specific conflict is the US CLOUD Act of 2018

The cost compounded the issue: according to Chigas, reaching the required licensing tier would have cost approximately CHF 500,000 per year. 

Finding the right platform took approximately two years. That timeline reflects both the stakes involved and how narrow the field becomes once genuine data sovereignty requirements are applied as a hard filter rather than a procurement checkbox. 

IPW's search surfaced three candidates: Threema, Signal, and Wire. Each was evaluated against two non-negotiable criteria: data residency and encryption key control. Sovereignty risk, the exposure created by dependence on infrastructure subject to foreign jurisdictions, and compliance risk, specifically ISMS obligations and lawful handling of patient communications under the FADP, together defined the decision.

Other options, like Signal, offered strong encryption credentials but fell short on organizational scale and administrative control. Wire cleared the threshold: hosted or on-premise deployment, customer-controlled encryption keys, and European foundations. The interface mattered too. Chiga described Wire's design as familiar, comparable to apps staff already use in their personal lives. In a healthcare environment where clinical staff have limited time and tolerance for new tools, that familiarity is a deployment advantage that compounds over time.

IPW began with a departmental pilot, a deliberate choice that gave the IT team room to observe adoption patterns and surface friction before committing to full organizational deployment. 

The signals from that pilot were mostly quiet, which Chigas read as positive.  In a clinical environment where communication tools are operationally critical, minimal complaints from end users is meaningful data. Staff were using it. The most actively used feature was video calls with patients, a use case that sits at the intersection of operational need and patient care delivery, and one that has become increasingly central to how modern psychiatric services are provided.

IPW is now moving from departmental pilot to organization-wide rollout, with the CEO and department heads involved in the decision. That shift in stakeholder level signals something important: Wire has crossed the threshold from IT evaluation tool to organizational infrastructure. 

Staff took to it quickly. The familiar, WhatsApp-like interface reduced the onboarding burden across a workforce ranging from clinical staff to administrative teams, which in a healthcare environment is often the difference between a tool that gets adopted and one that gets abandoned. The platform has proven reliable in day-to-day operations, and Wire is actively developing the reporting and analytics capabilities that growing deployments naturally demand. 

On integration, Wire operates independently of the Microsoft ecosystem by design. That independence is precisely what makes it sovereign and compliant, and for IPW it was a tradeoff made deliberately and without regret.

Wire provides IPW a simple, intuitive platform for secure messaging. The result is improved patient care through a streamlined day-to-day workflow. 

See how Wire helps organizations like IPW protect data, ensure compliance, and collaborate simply and securely.

Contact Sales