The Healthacross Initiative: How Lower Austria is boosting cross-border collaboration in health (2018)

2018, xiv + 43 pages
ISBN 978 92 890 5375 4  
This publication is only available online.

Cross-border collaboration in the field of health care can involve a transfer, movement or exchange of individuals, services or resources. It can comprise the sharing of health services, providers and expertise, as well as the provision of disease prevention, health promotion, curative and rehabilitative health services. This report tells the story of the cross-border collaboration in the field of health between Lower Austria and Czechia, and the beginning of collaboration with Slovakia. It focuses on the gradual provision of outpatient care and the exchange of medical expertise taking place in three border regions; documents the first largescale effort to develop cross-border cooperation on health care between a long-standing and new European Union Member States; and provides information on how and why cross-border care started, mechanisms used to put it in place, key stakeholders and the lessons learned, including challenges and enabling factors.