[Health care structures in outpatient pediatrics]

A reform of the Austrian healthcare system seems inevitable due to the foreseeable financing limits, the no longer up-to-date separation of intramural and extramural services, the increasing shortage of specialist physicians, and the altered requirements of the population with respect to health care.

The aim of this article is to provide the reader with an overview of the current issues in establishing new outpatient structures.

The recognizable trend to reduce the length of stay (LOS) in hospitals will increase the demand for outpatient hospital services. Consequently, it is vital to encourage synergy between these two different sectors. De facto, clinics providing more outpatient healthcare services in coordination with hospitals are still insufficient. With progressively fewer small practices and clinics, often addressed as lone fighters in the public debate, the outpatient settings operate without coordinated planning and policies with the larger actual outpatient healthcare system. This reality requires constant adaptation in the development of medical care. An upgrading of the outpatient services should provide new primary facilities; these can function from the side of the provider but presumably not from the aspects of organization, based on the German medical healthcare centers.