The sector encompasses manufacturer companies of special building installations adjusted to the requirements of the health and medical sector, hygiene, transport and communication systems, as well as service providers and advisors who provide know-how and services for the operators of health facilities.
Structure
The structure of the health system and facilities sector follow seven functional areas of hospitals:
- Examination and treatment (outpatient clinic, polyclinic, casualty department, trauma room, endoscopy, operating theatre, labour ward, etc.)
- Nursing care (wards)
- Administration (management, business administration, HR, technology, IT, works council, etc.)
- Social services (gate, social service, hospital chapel, cafeteria)
- Supply and disposal (workshops, store, kitchen, nursing wards, pharmacy, central sterilisation department, operating theatre)
- Research and teaching (lecture theatre, teaching rooms)
- Other areas (e.g. ambulance station, third-party companies, kindergarten)
Overlappings exist in particular with medical technology and laboratory diagnostics (service providers, producers, suppliers and sales companies). Numerous suppliers come from other high-tech sectors (e.g. locomotive, aviation, optoelectronics, extrusion and injection moulding technology, tool making).
Skills
The Austrian providers are successful with overall services from planning and construction to the training of the staff and ongoing operation and have a lot of experience in collaborating with international partners.
In addition, Austrian producers and service providers offer diverse, highly specialised products of outstanding quality.
- Software solutions, e.g. for oncological treatment or for automatic assistance in findings
- Quick diagnostic tests
- Blood glucose measuring devices
- Innovative diagnostics
- Innovative hygiene solutions
- Innovative training and rehabilitation appliances
- Plastic parts for medical and diagnostic applications
Projects
On the island of Hainan in the south of China, an integrated acute care and rehabilitation clinic is being created, a project that will be supported over its entire lifecycle by an Austrian developer in a joint venture. The scope incorporates the planning, supply of medical technology and IT as well as the overall operational management.
In the Canadian Specialist Hospital in Deira, a private rehabilitation centre was opened in 2016, the result of a partnership between the hospital and an Austrian project developer who has been active worldwide as the leading provider of rehabilitation services for 25 years.
Healthcare IT
In the age of digitalisation, the IT sector is becoming increasingly important for the health sector. Austrian start-ups demonstrate their strengths above all in the area of healthcare IT. For example, a MedTech start-up with its registered office in Vienna developed an image analysis with which skin diseases can be examined by smartphone camera and database.
Sustainability
Numerous Austrian medical technology companies deal with the development and production of sustainable products. For instance, work is done on environmentally friendly disposal systems for medical liquids, on reusable products and on the conscious use of plastics.