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Proportion of primary care practices using electronic medical records, 2021: 80%

Source: OECD (2023), Health at a Glance 2023: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, doi.org/10.1787/7a7afb35-en.

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“Expanding the use of a universal electronic health record (Elektronische Gesundheitsakte – ELGA) and its e-medication and e-report applications has been a focus since its introduction in 2014, with implementation monitored as part of the national target-based governance agreement. By March 2022, ELGA was operational in 68% of hospitals, including all publicly owned hospitals, 97% of pharmacies, 94% of physician offices with SHI [Social Health Insurance] contracts and 9% of long-term care facilities. An electronic vaccination record was added to ELGA in 2021 and used as part of the COVID-19 vaccination rollout. SHI funds expanded the use of electronic prescriptions during the pandemic. However, the increasing preponderance of private practice is also a concern with respect to use of the electronic health record, as physicians without SHI contract have no obligation yet to use the record and have to self-fund investments in the necessary electronic infrastructure.

“Despite the strong electronic infrastructure and progress in the primary use of data, health system governance and research could benefit from greater use of data. Secondary use of ELGA data is heavily restricted by legislation and existing routine health datasets are not frequently linked or analysed for research, statistical or monitoring purposes. As a result, Austria scores lower than a number of EU countries in terms of data governance and use – in particular, compared to Nordic and Baltic countries (Oderkirk, 2021).”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2023), Austria: Country Health Profile 2023, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.

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“The universal electronic health record and its eMedication and eReport applications have made substantial progress since their introduction in 2014. The electronic health record was introduced in all federal states and was operational in nearly all Austrian pharmacies, 86 % of ambulatory practices and 76 % of hospitals in 2020. Furthermore, important progress was made with implementation of the electronic vaccination record, which was prioritised for the COVID-19 vaccination rollout (see also Section 5.3).”

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“Different reliable online health information platforms provide structured information on providers and health-related issues. Since the beginning of 2015, patients can access electronic health records via the ELGA (Electronic Health Record) online portal, which serves as an individual document repository at the patient level. Finally, the public health portal gesundheit.gv.at includes comprehensive peer-reviewed information on lifestyles, diseases and therapies as well as on health system governance, patient rights and service claims (section 4.1.4).

“To date, there has been no general and formal process for HTA, which applies to all sectors of the health care system, although for some products and services specific provisions on HTA are in place (e.g. reimbursement of pharmaceuticals used in ambulatory (extramural) care; reimbursement of services provided in hospitals). Yet, the question of when HTA procedures are launched remains largely non-transparent for the general public. In 2015, the Austrian HTA strategy was evaluated (Busse and Panteli, 2015). Based on the results, three major stakeholder groups (SHI, the Federal Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Health and Consumer Protection (BMASGK), the Länder), together with experts from the Austrian Public Health Institute and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for HTA, will decide on the next steps in the context of the ongoing national reform process (second Federal TargetBased Governance Agreement).”

Source: Bachner F, Bobek J, Habimana K, Ladurner J, Lepuschütz L, Ostermann H, Rainer L, Schmidt A E, Zuba M, Quentin W, Winkelmann J. Austria: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2018; 20(3): 1 – 256.

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“For the inpatient sector, comprehensive information is available on service provision and financing. Hospitals are required to provide a minimum basic dataset for each admission, including information on age, gender, procedures (coded according to a national procedure catalogue) and diagnoses (coded according to the International Classification of Diseases, ICD-10). Furthermore, hospitals are obliged to report general information, such as number of beds, quantity and qualifications of personnel, availability of equipment, number of inpatient stays etc., as well as aggregated data on costs according to defined standards. Data are integrated in a non-public database (Diagnosen- und Leistungsdokumentation der österreichischen Krankenanstalten) (BMGF, 2017ac) that is accessible for the main stakeholders (BMASGK, SHI funds, Länder). Selected contents (e.g. on utilization, diagnoses and procedures) are published online by the BMGF/BMASGK (BMGF, 2017k).

“Since 2013, inpatient quality is assessed by the Austrian Inpatient Quality Indicators (A-IQI) on the basis of administrative data with more than 200 indicators which are focused on outcome quality, e.g. inpatient mortality of patients with cerebral infarction or share of patients with complications following cystectomies (BMGF, 2016a). However, transparency remains limited because indicators are not publicly reported at hospital level.”

Source: Bachner F, Bobek J, Habimana K, Ladurner J, Lepuschütz L, Ostermann H, Rainer L, Schmidt A E, Zuba M, Quentin W, Winkelmann J. Austria: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2018; 20(3): 1 – 256.

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World Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems and policies in the US and sixteen other nations.

Page last updated August 13, 2025 by Doug McVay, Editor.