Review: ICV Forum Health Care Austria 2024

By Dr. Dietmar Ranftle

Once again this year, controllers and managers from the Austrian health care sector who are involved in controlling met at the ICV Forum Health Care Austria, which took place at the event center of the Klinik Wien-Floridsdorf. A number of participants, speakers and members of the organizing team met at the warm-up event the evening before in Vienna’s city centre to engage in lively discussions and get in the mood for the next day.

The conference, moderated by the Head of the Work Group DDr. Dietmar Ranftler, began with a panel discussion in which Dr. Michael Heinisch, Managing Director of the Vinzenz Group, DI Herwig Wetzlinger, CFO of WIGEV and Director of Vienna General Hospital, Dr. Heinz Brock, MBA as Emeritus Medical Director of Kepler University Hospital and Prof. Dr. Heimo Losbichler as Chairman of the ICV discussed approaches, challenges and prospects for digitalization in the health care sector.
Doris Guttmann from Innovation Management at the Vinzenzgruppe then gave an impressive account of the strategic framework and challenges involved in developing the “Hallo Gesundheit” application.

After the coffee break with good networking opportunities, Dipl.KH-Bw. Michael Kazianschütz, MBA MSc, gave a very impressive introduction to the world of lean management and provided insights into the logistical processes under digitalized conditions at Graz University Hospital. Carsten Ohm from the IT and consulting company KMS then demonstrated how clinical staff can be given an excellent understanding of the business contexts of a hospital in a haptic way, making use of their playful ambition. The subsequent lunch break again provided a good opportunity for informal discussions between speakers, participants and exhibitors.

In the workshop held in parallel to the plenary session, Erich Wechselberger, MSc MAS, very clearly demonstrated the possibilities of capacity and resource planning through data mining based on LKF data. In the lecture hall, Ingo Mayr from Premiqamed raised awareness of data protection, which is highly significant and must be observed not only in the clinical area, but also in controlling. Wolfgang Kaltenegger, CFO of Senecura and Senevita Kliniken, then gave the audience an understanding of the special requirements and challenges of a large private and international health care company in the rehabilitation and care sector.

After further networking discussions during the coffee break, Michael Eipeldauer, as a consultant, introduced the audience to the world of lobbying and public affairs, which is rather foreign to controllers, but which necessarily brings together politicians, product providers and healthcare providers in order to ultimately advance society. In the last presentation of the conference, Dr. Michael Ginner from KPMG, together with Johanna Horn, MBA from SOLVE, demonstrated live and entertainingly the possibilities of bots in the automation of routine processes such as the preparation of supervisory board reports.

Before the summary and a review by the Head of the Work Group, the winners of the controller-related quiz game held before lunch were honored. The main prize went to Stefan Wagner from Feldkirch.
We would like to thank the members of the working group who acted as moderators, Michael Schwob, Jürgen Tiefenbacher, Dr. Johannes Painold and Rene Lambert, as well as the rest of the organizational team.

Overall, the event can be described as extremely successful thanks to the broad program, the excellent speakers and presentations and the active participation of around 180 attendees. We are already looking forward to the next ICV Forum Health Care Austria, which will take place on Thursday, September 25, 2025.