Capacity building through target group involvement – the Austrian Primary Health Care Platform

Kathryn Hoffmann, Sarah Burgmann, Florian Stigler, David Wachabauer

Keywords: capacity buildung, Primary Health Care, Austria, target-group involvement

Background:

Since 2013, the Austrian Primary Care (PC) reform aims to strengthen the PC sector. Different initiatives were focusing on the introduction of additional organizational forms besides single-handed and GP group practices: PC Centres and Networks. They consist of an interdisciplinary PC team, have extended opening hours, and offer more comprehensive services. However, to tackle the capacity building gap public PC is facing, there was the need for further action. In 2021, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection successfully applied for the Recovery and Resilience Facility of the EU. One element is the project “Enhancing primary health care in Austria” and, within this, the building of a Primary Care Platform to support and strengthen the current PC reform efforts.

Research questions:

The Austrian Primary Care Platform is managed by the Austrian National Public Health Institute and will be launched in September 2022. Its aim is to create a support-, meeting-, education-, and exchange- space for (current and future) PC professionals and thereby to improve the capacity building and development of interdisciplinary PC.

Method:

To make the platform more sustainable and to meet the needs of its target groups, PC community involvement from the beginning was a matter of course. Thereby, plenty of interviews, focus groups, and workshops with relevant individuals were conducted to systematically collect their ideas, needs, challenges, and realistic involvement potential. Additionally, regularly grassroot meetings with members are planned. All activities of the platform are designed based on the involvement (ideas, needs, challenges) of its potential members.

Results:

Expected result: Besides sustainable capacity building for PC, we collected and included all ideas, needs and challenges within a database and, thus, hope to be able to provide a unique insight into the views, perceptions, and needs of the different target-groups for PC in Austria to build adequate capacity.

Conclusions:

Points for discussion:

Are there similar initiatives in other countries?

How would you generate the database (e.g. MS Access)?

What are the main needs of health care personnel regarding PC in your country?

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