Geriatric Care in Vienna in the Context of Demographic Change

In the coming decades, Austria will be confronted with a significant change in the demographic structure towards a higher proportion of older people. This poses challenges in many areas of society and the economy. Particularly in the health care sector, the ageing of the population is accompanied by an increasing need for medical care. The expected increase in demand for doctors is offset by a comparatively unfavourable demography of doctors. The present study quantifies for Vienna the current and future extent of geriatric services in private practices and hospitals and estimates the future demand for medical services on the basis of current service provision for different age groups of the population. Since the concept of geriatrics can hardly be defined on the basis of statistics, a survey of Viennese physicians on the current distribution of the medical services provided to different age groups forms the basis of these estimates. The results of the survey are combined with projections on the demographic development of the population (to determine the need for medical services) and the population of physicians and graduates (to determine the supply of medical services) in order to identify future gaps in care. As the results show, the developments of the supply of physicians and the demand for physicians up to 2050 create a gap that is striking: according to these projections, total demand will increase by about one third by 2050, while supply will increase by only one sixth even under optimistic assumptions. The smallest gap is expected to be for general practitioners.