ABSTRACT
In 1990, Austria ranked 14th among selected high-income countries in terms of disease burden due to stroke; by 2010, this ranking had improved significantly, with Austria moving to 7th place. In Austria, healthcare responsibilities are shared between the federal administration and the nine federal states with their municipalities. A hospital-based survey of stroke care in Austria, performed in 1990, showed that in 146 hospitals that were caring for stroke patients, 69" of patients had been admitted to departments of internal medicine and 31" to neurological departments. The well-equipped and accessible Austrian hospital sector, working in tandem with effective emergency services, has been instrumental in Austria's stroke care success. While the planning of healthcare capacity in Austria has unique features, methods may well be transferable to other countries. These methods combine volume data coming from activity-based financing (DRGs) and measures of the regional distribution of hospital capacity to ensure equitable access to care.
