Study visit from Lower Austria
17 January 2018

Lower Austria Health and Social Fund and euPrevent are working together since 2005. Both are active in cross border health care. euPrevent in the working area of the Euregion Meuse-Rhine, Lower Austria with the Czech Republic and Slovakia. We exchange and share information, work on projects together and learn from each other. This has resulted in study visits of professionals concerning a specific content related topics like overweight, patient power and infectious disease control, but also in combined lobby for cross border health care in Brussels.

The study visit of Lower Austria to the EMR on the 15th and 16th of January 2018 was fully related to the topic ‚mental health‘. In general the field of mental health is changing: both content as organizational/structural wise. We all face these changes and challenges, but in different ways. Therefore the goal of the study visit was to exchange information on what the different institutions do, which challenges they face and what we can do together in order to face the challenges.
A delegation of 5 persons (medical staff and management staff) in the field of mental health visited Vianobis in Gangelt (DE), Mondriaan in Heerlen (NL) and OPZ Rekem in Rekem (BE). Topic which were addressed were geronto-psychiatry, mental health, addiction, forensic psychiatry and the way the organization deal with prevention and inpatient and outpatient care.

The study visit led to concrete first ideas of cooperation which will be explored in the next couple of months and will be discussed in a next study visit of experts of the EMR to Lower Austria.