Hanusch Hospital partners with four centres on eye care

Vienna’s Hanusch Hospital is working with four health centres to provide eye examinations and follow-up checks closer to patients’ homes, ORF reports. Patients will generally go to the hospital only for surgery.

The hospital performs around 7,500 cataract operations each year. That figure is expected to rise as the population ages and the baby boomer generation reaches an age when eye diseases become more common, said Oliver Findl, a specialist in ophthalmology and optometry.

The Austrian Health Insurance Fund is using the partnership to reduce pressure on hospital outpatient departments. The Hanusch Hospital is cooperating with ÖGK health centres in Mariahilf, Landstrasse, Favoriten and Floridsdorf. Ophthalmologists work across the different locations.

For cataract patients, the examination before surgery can take place at a health centre. Doctors then confirm the diagnosis and schedule the operation at the hospital. Necessary checks after surgery can also be carried out close to where patients live. The current waiting time for cataract surgery is three to four months.

Local care is particularly important for patients who need regular treatment, including those with macular degeneration. The chronic eye disease affects the centre of the retina and can cause fluid or blood to accumulate, leading to a sudden severe loss of vision, Findl said. He described it as the most common cause of blindness in the Western world.

Patients with the condition must regularly receive medication injections directly into the eye. About 20,000 such treatments are expected to be carried out this year, some of them at the health centres.

Bernhard Wurzer, director general of the Austrian Health Insurance Fund, said the model would be expanded further. The aim is to treat people locally through outpatient care while retaining the hospital as a backup.