Around one in four Austrians will suffer from depression in their lifetime. Every year that is between eight and ten percent of the population. The pandemic has shown that the need for treatment places for mental illnesses exceeds the capacities in health facilities. “There are far too many people affected for face-to-face psychotherapy,” says Lukas Pezawas.
The senior physician at the University Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in Vienna therefore worked with IT specialists to develop the “Edupression” program, with which depressed patients can, for example, rate the effectiveness of their medication on a scale. This is how they should learn to deal with their illness. According to Pezawas, an initial study showed promising results.
So far, the administration in the health sector has been digitized in Austria – keyword e-card and electronic health record. Treating depressive disorders via app can serve as an example of how healthcare could benefit from more digitization. At the moment, according to Pezawas, there is still a lack of the right framework conditions for companies.
Legal basis
Not so in Germany: There the “Digital Supply Act” came into force in 2019, with which a procedure for the testing and approval of such apps was created. For example, data protection, user friendliness and the positive supply effect of the applications are checked.
The law enables insured persons to use digital health applications without any financial contribution. These are supposed to help, for example, in recognizing or alleviating diseases, with a low risk for the patient. 25 of these applications are already eligible for reimbursement.
This also includes “Pro-React Onco”, an app for breast cancer sufferers, on which they record symptoms and receive appropriate behavioral advice – for example, whether medical advice is necessary. This is intended to conserve resources in the health system.
A number of digital health apps are also currently being developed in Austria. The market potential is huge: Health apps were downloaded to smartphones around 4.1 billion times in 2018. Around one billion euros have been invested in this area in Germany, Austria and Switzerland over the past ten years. The lack of a legal basis and the lack of financing models from the health insurance companies are currently making it difficult to roll out the applications in Austria. A negative example is MySugr, an app with which diabetes sufferers can better manage their therapy. The company, which was founded in Vienna, is now active in 80 countries with its app. She was hired in Austria.
Source: Nachrichten
