How Upper Austria wants to relieve the hospital staff

The state of Upper Austria, together with the hospital operators, wants to relieve their staff, but first with measures and not with more money and more staff. This was announced by LH deputy Christine Haberlander (ÖVP) as a health officer at a press conference on Wednesday in Linz.

The package of measures presented was developed by a task force consisting of the state, the health holding responsible for the state hospitals, headed by Franz Harnoncourt, and the Vinzenz group headed by Michael Heinisch. One of the central strategies is to improve patient guidance, for example to doctors in private practice. Furthermore, the health literacy of the population is to be strengthened. Digitization in the health sector is to be expanded in order to enable more human affection for employees. In addition, the bureaucratisation should be pursued.

The telephone number 1450, which was actually intended for health advice, but was most recently used primarily as a Corona contact point, was given concrete examples of these measures, some of which have already been implemented and some to be implemented in the coming years. The primary care centers also developed well. Company health promotion programs, support for family carers and self-help groups, digital speech recognition for documentation in hospitals, digital temperature charts or a self-check-in when entering hospitals for treatment are also intended to reduce the workload on staff. However, digitization should only be a means to an end. People will always be needed to care for the sick.

Calling for more money and staff in the hospitals “would be too short,” said Haberlander when asked. In any case, more money is constantly flowing into the health system, and more staff are being built up. Before more staff come, it must be analyzed where and how they will be deployed. “Pressure points” recognized in this way would have to be eliminated and thus relief would have to be brought about.