Austria’s health system needs a boost to digitization, not only in terms of administration, but also with a view to medical care, complains the Viennese psychiatrist and health app developer Lukas Pezawas. Austria urgently needs to catch up: “We are four to five years behind schedule compared to Germany.” Pezawas is the senior physician at the University Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Vienna General Hospital.
In psychiatry in particular, apps have long been necessary, says the Viennese doctor, and have become even more urgent in the course of the corona pandemic. “Since the beginning of the pandemic, the number of depressed patients has tripled worldwide.” Because of their enormous number, treatment “solely through face-to-face psychotherapy is not even theoretically conceivable”. Therefore, the majority of depressed patients would remain without psychotherapeutic treatment. On average, a quarter of people will develop depression at some point in their life. “That is eight to ten percent of the population every year.” This amount is also not manageable.
The doctor demands that help be offered quickly and unbureaucratically. Digital health applications could be sufficient therapy for mild to moderately depressed patients and, in more severe cases, enhance the effectiveness of drugs or psychotherapy. In addition, one could bridge long waiting times with psychiatrists or therapists. And: “The importance of digital care for mental illnesses is underlined and demanded by the World Health Organization (WHO) in its global strategy report on digital health,” said Pezawas.
In cooperation with IT specialists, Pezawas has developed “Edupression” (www.edupression.com) Such a program has already been developed. “Edupression” can be used by users at any time via computer, tablet or smartphone. “This can also offer advantages because therapeutic contact is often established here. Most of the time, the patients only see their therapist for an hour, for example, once a week, ”argued Pezawas.
In Austria, however, all of this is not yet possible on a broad basis, says the expert: “First of all, there is no law”. Germany already has one. In addition, there is no authorization procedure in Austria. “And finally, the financing of such digital health applications by the health insurance companies still has to be clarified. That will certainly take a few years, I am counting on four to five years. ”The consequences could be bizarre. “It would be bizarre if such an Austrian app had to come onto the market in Germany because it doesn’t exist in Austria.”
