Modernising the Health Care System

Research studies are primarily conducted either with a focus on the evaluation of health related interventions highlighting health economic issues or with the aim to provide a decision-making basis for the planning in health care systems (specific service needs, capacity, financing). Apart from medical treatments the emphasis lies on care services, preventive strategies or interventions at the level of health delivery systems (e.g. competition in the national health insurance). For each project an adequate mix of empirical methods is specified.

Actual State Analysis and Needs-Assessment in Psychiatry

For the Health Ministry (Gesundheitsdirektion) of the Canton of Basel-City and Berne an actual state analysis of the current stationary care was conducted using available statistics on hospital discharges. Using scenario-techniques, Delphi-Workshops with local experts allowed for defining the desired target corridor for different means of care . Demographic projections appraised the impact of various scenarios on future care capacities. The results provided a basis for the cantonal decision making processes.

Measurement of Burden of Disease by DALYs

Disability adjusted life years (DALYs) are a measurement-concept in which Years Lost to Disability (YLD) are added to Years of Life Lost (YLD) due to premature mortality in order to obtain a comparable measure of a population’s burden of disease across different kinds of diseases and regions. In cooperation with the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health and the University of Toronto (Canada) researchers from Carinthia are contributing to the commission of NIH (Bethesda) to develop improved DALY-Weights specific to the USA.

Early Retirement for Mental Reasons

In collaboration with the "Department of Psychiatric Rehabilitation (Fachstelle Psychiatrische Rehabilitation)" of Canton Basel-Country more than 1.000 representatively chosen retirement dossiers of the Swiss invalidity insurance were encoded and statistically evaluated in order to highlight the causes for the rapid increase of the number of early retirements for mental reasons within the years 1994 and 2006.

Download:  http://www.bsv.admin.ch/praxis/forschung/00106/01326/index.html?lang=en

GEROM – Joint Development of an Online Gerontological Master Degree Programme

GEROM is an ongoing EU-project and part of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU. Six European countries (Slovenia, Austria, Bulgaria, UK, Ireland, and Finland) are working together on the development of an online gerontological master degree programme.

The frequently cited demographic changes as well as the increasing mobility within the European healthcare market underline the relevance of this project. GEROM is lead by the Slovenian partners, Austria (CUAS, School of Health and Care) leads the work package "evaluation and quality assurance".

Details: http://www.springerlink.com/content/mrm633428p3167x2/?p=60641723568e4bf497167bb434e21d01&pi=7