The Healthcare number 1450 - "When it hurts! 1450" - is the first point of contact for health questions in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. Specially trained qualified nursing staff advise callers on their health complaints. If the callers do not know to whom they should contact because of their symptoms, the trained staff members give appropriate recommendations for symptoms by asking specific questions using a medical-scientific query system - taking into account the current whereabouts of the caller. Therefore, on a low-threshold level the Austrian emergency call 144, reception desks in outpatient clinics and doctors in private practice can be relieved. Telephone health counselling began as a pilot project "TeWeb" (telephone and web-based first contact and counselling service) on 7 April 2017 in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Lower Austria Lower Austria (german: Niederösterreich; Austro-Bavarian: ''Niedaöstareich'', ''Niedaestareich'') is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Since 1986, the capital of Lower Austria has been Sankt P ...

and

Vorarlberg Vorarlberg ( , ; gsw, label=Vorarlbergisch, Vorarlbearg, , or ) is the westernmost States of Austria, state () of Austria. It has the second-smallest geographical area after Vienna and, although it also has the second-smallest population, it is ...

and went into operation throughout Austria on 4 November 2019. The telephone number can be reached 24 hours a day and also at weekends. The caller only incurs the usual telephone costs according to their telephone tariff. The providers of the telephone health advice service are the

states of Austria Austria is a federal republic made up of nine states (German: ''Länder''). Since ''Land'' is also the German word for "country", the term ''Bundesländer'' (literally ''federal states'') is often used instead to avoid ambiguity. The Constitutio ...

, the umbrella organisation of social insurance and the

Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection In Austrian politics, the Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection (''Bundesministerium für Soziales, Gesundheit, Pflege und Konsumentenschutz'') is the ministry in charge of welfare policy. The Ministry was fi ...

Covid-19 pandemic

Especially at the beginning of the

COVID-19 pandemic in Austria The COVID-19 pandemic in Austria is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). In Austria, a pair of cases were confirmed on 25 February 2020. The ca ...

, this number became well-known, as potential COVID-19 infected persons should under no circumstances go to a doctor or to an outpatient clinic in order to reduce the risk of infection. Due to the spread of the coronavirus in mid-March, there were about 70 times as many calls. Due to the high number of inquiries and the resulting congestion, it was requested that only those specifically affected should call with a specific question. For general questions about the coronavirus, an information hotline was set up by the Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES) on 27 January 2020 under the Austrian number 0800/555621.

External links

1450 – die Gesundheitsnummer
(in German) * Telefonische Gesundheitsberatung (in German)

References

{{Reflist COVID-19 pandemic in Austria Telephone numbers in Austria