Statistics Austria

Directorate Social Statistics

Unit Demography and Health

Guglgasse 13

1110 Vienna

Austria

Statistics on healthcare non-expenditure provide information on healthcare human resources, healthcare facilities, and healthcare utilisation.

- People active in the healthcare sector (doctors, dentists, nurses, etc.) and their status (graduates, practising, migration of doctors and nurses, etc.);

- Available healthcare technical resources and facilities (hospital beds, beds in residential care facilities, medical technology, etc.);

- Health activities or patient contacts undertaken (hospital discharges, surgical procedures, ambulatory care data, etc.). 

Annual national and regional data are provided in absolute numbers or as a rate of a relevant population.

Data are based mainly on administrative records (see section 18.1 ‘Source data’ for more information).

For the collection of data on healthcare non- expenditure, the classifications used in the System of Health Accounts (SHA) and its related set of International Classification for the Health Accounts (https://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/1841456.pdf ) are applied.

For hospital discharges, the International Shortlist for Hospital Morbidity Tabulation (ISHMT) is used. (https://circabc.europa.eu/ui/group/c1b49c83-24a7-4ff2-951c-621ac0a89fd8/library/6ff71dd5-8200-4fe4-a610-a7707cd47c4d )

For Health Employment, the Directive 2005/36/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 September 2005 on the recognition of professional qualifications apply (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2005/36/2020-04-24 ).

Definitions of mandatory variables are laid down in Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/2294.

Where possible, the statistics are separated by sex (male/female), age group and NUTS2 region.

The Eurostat manual on healthcare non-expenditure statistics provides an overview of the classifications, both for mandatory variables and variables provided on voluntary basis.

National deviations: see Annex at the bottom of the page.

Public health.

The healthcare non-expenditure statistics describe the public health sector from a non-monetary perspective. The statistics explain the number or rate of different healthcare resources, facilities and utilisations. A wide range of indicators are collected from a multitude of sources and therefore, details pertaining to individual variables are given in the Annex.

Definitions of mandatory variables are laid down in Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/2294.

The Eurostat manual on healthcare non-expenditure statistics provides an overview of the classifications, both for mandatory variables and variables provided on voluntary basis.

National changes of statistical concepts and national definitions deviating from Regulation (EU) 2022/2294: see Annex at the bottom of the page.

Registered health professionals, health care facility categories or health care activities.

(1) all health care staff 

(2) all availale hospitals

(3) all available beds or equipment in hospitals or in nursing and residential care facilities

(4) all discharges or procedures performed in all hospitals

(5) all inpatient, outpatient and ambulatory exams and procedures

Complete national territory

Health Employment and Education

Practising physicians: 1960–2023

Professionally active physicians: not available

Physicians licensed to practice: not available

Physicians by age group: 1995–2023

Physicians by categories: 1980–2017, 2019–2023

Practising midwives: 1980–2023

Professionally active midwives: 1980–2023

Midwives licensed to practice: 2013–2023

Practising professional nurses: 1985–2022

Practising associate professional nurses: 2019–2022

Professionally active professional nurses: 2019–2022

Professionally active associate professional nurses: 2019–2022

Professional nurses licensed to practice: 2019–2022

Associate professional nurses licensed to practice: 2019–2022

Total nurses by age group: 2020–2022

Professional nurses by age group: 2020–2022

Associate professional nurses by age group : 2020–2022

Practising caring personnel (personal care workers): 2000–2202

Professionally active caring personnel (personal care workers): 2019–2022

Practising dentists: 1980, 1985–2023

Professionally active dentists: not available

Dentists licensed to practice: not available

Practising pharmacists: 1980–2023

Professionally active pharmacists: not available

Pharmacists licensed to practice: not available

Physiotherapists: 1980, 1985–2023

Total hospital employment: 2000–2022

Medical graduates: 1981–2022

Dentists graduates: 1999–2022

Pharmacists graduates: 1981–2022

Midwives graduates: 1998–2022

Nursing graduates: 1980–2022

Professional nursing graduates: 1980–2022

Associate professional nursing graduates: 2017–2022

Health Workforce Migration

Doctors by country of first qualification (stock): 2005–2023

Doctors by country of first qualification (annual inflow): 2006–2023

Nurses by country of first qualification (stock): 2019–2022

Nurses by country of first qualification (annual inflow): 2013–2022

Physical and Technical Resources

Hospitals: 1985–2022

Total hospital beds by function of health care: 1988–2022

Total hospital beds by sector: 1985–2022

Intensive care unit (ICU) beds and occupancy: 2015–2022

Beds in residential long-term care facilities: 2004, 2007, 2009, 2011–2022

Computed Tomography scanners: 1996–2022

Magnetic Resonance Imaging units: 1996–2022

Positron Emission Tomography scanners: 1998–2022

Gamma cameras: 1996–2022

Mammographs: 2013–2022

Radiation therapy equipment: 1996–2022

Healthcare Activities

Doctor consultations (in person): 2017–2022

Dentist consultations (in person): 1960–2022

Total doctor consultations (including teleconsultations): 2017–2022

Doctor teleconsultations: not available

Immunisation against influenza (among population aged 65 and over): 2006, 2014, 2019

Breast cancer screening (mammography) based on programme data: 2015–2022

Breast cancer screening (mammography) based on survey data: 2006, 2014, 2019

Cervical cancer screening based on programme data: not available

Cervical cancer screening based on survey data: 2006, 2014, 2019

Colorectal cancer screening rate based on programme data: not available

Colorectal cancer screening rate based on survey data: 2014, 2019

Hospital aggregates: Inpatient care: 1989–2022

Hospital aggregates: Curative (acute) care: 1989–2022

Hospital discharge data by diagnostic categories: 2001–2022

Diagnostic exams: 2004–2022

Surgical procedures (shortlist): 1997–2022

Eurostat module

Physicians at regional level: 1993–2023

Total hospital beds at regional level: 1993–2022

Operation theatres in hospital: 2000–2022

Day care places altogether: not available

Surgical day care places: not available

Oncological day care places: not available

Psychiatric day care places: not available

Geriatric day care places: not available

Hospital discharges of non-resident patients: 1989–2022

Not applicable

Absolute numbers at end of reference period.

Average number during reference period.

Absolute numbers (sum) in the reference period.

Rate of phenomenon per reference population.

Average number of observation per person per reference period.

Calendar year.

Regulation on Community statistics on public health and health and safety at work (EC) No 1338/2008 

Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/2294 on statistics on healthcare facilities, healthcare human resources and healthcare utilisation 

Gentlemen’s agreement

Federal Act on Documentation in Health Care, Federal Law Gazette No. 745/1996 of December 27, 1996

Joint Questionnaire on Non-Monetary Health Care Statistics, which is carried by Eurostat, OECD and WHO-Europe.

Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation)

Federal Act concerning the Protection of Personal Data (Data Protection Law) BGBl. I Nr. 165/1999

Data dissemination maximum in five-years age groups, lowest regional level federal provinces.

Cell counts of n<3 are suppressed.

There is a publicly available publication calendar on the Statistics Austria website.

https://www.statistik.at/en/medien/release-calendar

https://www.statistik.at/en/services/tools/services/publikationen

The Federal Statistical Office of Austria ("Statistics Austria") is an independent and non-profit-making federal institution under public law called Statistics Austria (STAT). It is responsible for performing scientific services in the field of federal statistics (§ 22 BStatG). In this context, federal statistics are defined as a (non-personal) information system of the federal government that provides data on the economic, demographic, social, ecological and cultural conditions in Austria. This information helps administrative bodies in planning and political decision-making procedures and in controlling the measures they have taken. Moreover, data are made available to the scientific and business communities as well as to the general public. Federal statistics comprises the compilation of statistics of all kinds, including analyses, prognoses and statistical models that go beyond the interests of a single state (“Bundesland”) (§§ 1 and 2 BStatG). The statistics are decreed by EU legal acts, federal laws or by regulations.

In performing its tasks, Statistics Austria must observe the following principles (§§ 14, 19, 24, 30 BStatG): 

• objectivity and impartiality in the compilation of statistics
• application of statistical methods and procedures according to internationally accepted scientific principles and standards and disclosure thereof
• ongoing monitoring of statistics with the aim of improving quality
• maintaining a high degree of timeliness
• publishing statistics and their underlying concepts, definitions and explanations immediately while granting public access to the main results via the Internet free of charge
• minimizing the burden on data subjects and respondents and providing them with sufficient information
• keeping personal data confidential

In order to make the collected data accessible - within the scope of the legal mandate - not only to the public administration, but also to the scientific and business communities, the broader public as well as citizens, Statistics Austria provides information, expert services, special statistical evaluations as well as statistical data. If these services go beyond the provision of free standard information, an appropriate fee is charged (§ 29 BStatG).

Yearly.

Press release Hospital Discharges (yearly): Number of inpatient hospital stays increased slightly in 2021

Press release Hospital Discharges (yearly): Fewer hospitalisations in 2022 than before the pandemic

Statistics Austria: Yearbook of Health Statistics. Vienna: Statistics Austria. Annual Publication.

Publication available as pdf free of charge. Print-publication and download tables for a fee.

Data are available in the online database STATcube (database Hospital Discharges). Main results are free of charge, for the query of detailed data a paid subscription can be ordered (different types of subscriptions).

Selected datafiles are provided as Open Data. 

Statistics Austria provides selected anonymized microdata of hospital discharge statistics as standardized datasets as well as task-specific datasets for use in scientific research and teaching.

A 5% sample of a complete standard data set is available free of charge (about 4 million records).

Access to microdata for scientific purposes is also available at Statistics Austria's Safe Center.

Tables and further information on the website of Statistics Austria.

Evaluations on request.

Statistics Austria: Standard documentation. Meta information (definitions, comments, methods, quality) on Hospital Discharges Statistics.

Data from external data providers: Annual review of the current metadata in cooperation with those responsible for the data sources. Revision of time series, if necessary.

Data Statistics Austria (hospital discharges): Before the source data on hospital discharges are transmitted to Statistics Austria, they are checked for formal and medical validity by the reporting hospitals, their legal entities and the Ministry of Health. Data entry in the hospitals is carried out in an EDP program with integrated automated plausibility checks. Statistics Austria performs further quality control at the microdata record level: Comparison of the variable characteristics present in the data delivery with the valid classifications, checklists and defined validity ranges, comparison of the data with the previous year's publications (from the Ministry and Statistics Austria).

Statistics Austria: Quality Guidelines. Version 2.1. Vienna: Statistics Austria 2017.

Summary Quality Guidelines in English available.

Not available.

Public administration, health policy, science and research.

Unmet user requirements: Insufficient data on health care in ambulant and outpatient care, missing person identifier in hospital discharge statistics.

Statistics Austria conducts an annual survey on customer satisfaction.

100 %.

Very good overall accuracy, see 10.7 and 11.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

No undue delay.

No delay.

No deviations from the ESS/international concepts. 

Comparability between the regions is 100 % given.

The data are fully comparable over time, except for data marked with a B-flag (see also "definitions" in the annexes).

No incoherent data. 

No inconsistence within given data sets.

Reg. (EC) No 223 /2009 on European statistics stipulates cost effectiveness as statistical principle; however, there is no legal obligation to deliver costs and burden in quality reports. Such an obligation is also not covered by sectoral legislation. Additionally, consistent standards for reports on costs are still missing and have to be developed by the RDG-expert group. Without harmonised fundamentals every report on costs leads unavoidably to distortion and misrepresentation. Therefore, Statistics Austria will not deliver any information on costs as long as no harmonised reporting standards are in place.

In general, it can be said that a data revision is a change to statistical results that have already been published. It is important for a National Statistical Institute to communicate how this practice, which is common in official statistics, is dealt with. With this in mind, Statistics Austria has decided to make information about data revisions available to interested users by means of a comprehensive revision policy. 

The document initially defines the term data revision and then differentiates between scheduled and event-related revisions. For both revision types, it is explained which publication channels Statistics Austria uses to communicate information about revisions.

In an appendix, which is constantly maintained, all statistical projects can be seen broken down according to subject areas in which planned revisions are being carried out. While there you will find information about the chronological sequence of the individual revision steps, the standard documentation contains content-related aspects and information about the quantitative extent of revisions at the appropriate point. 

See Statistics Austria: Revisions Policy. Data revisions of published statistical results. Vienna: Statistics Austria 2022.

The following revisions of time series were made in the course of the 2023 data delivery:

• Physicians: assignment of maxillofacial surgeons to dentists (previously reported as physicians according to national training regulations).
• Nurses: assignment of nursing assistants to caring personnel (previously reported as associate professional nurses).
• Inpatient Stays: assignment of zero-night stays with discharge type "deceased" to inpatient discharges (previously reported as day cases).
• Days of stay: zero-night stays with discharge type "deceased" are coded with a length of one day (previously zero days).

These revisions became necessary with the concretisation or modification of definitions in the course of the Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/2294 that entered into force in 2022.

Source data for the different variables are given in the Annex at the bottom of the page.

Annual.

Statistical products within the framework of official statistics cover a variety of topics relevant to society and economic policy. All data and studies that contain descriptive and analytical information about the economic, demographic, social, ecological and cultural conditions of society as a basis for decision-making for social and/or economic issues, scientific research or international comparisons are considered statistical products. The methods of creation, the concepts and definitions used and the presentation of the results can vary depending on the topic. As with every form of production, however, there are common fundamental production steps that form the basis of most official statistics.

The process structure of Statistics Austria is based on the internationally established standard of the Generic Statistical Process Model (GSBPM). This model, which is considered a so-called non-legal binding standard within the European Statistical System, was adapted to meet the requirements of the Federal Institute. Since GSBPM only maps the statistical core processes, GSBPM was extended to the Generic Activity Model for Statistical Organizations (GAMSO) in order to also be able to integrate supporting processes.

See 18.3 and 11.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

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