Paradigm shift in mental health care: Challenges and approaches in reorganising financing systems in the process of developing a community mental health care system

Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Jubiläumsfonds)

From around 1960 provision of mental health care has undergone substantial changes in most of the Western societies. The common idea of the developments has been to reorganise and reshape mental health care from asylum based care to community based mental health care.Reorganising mental health care not only has to consider medical aspects but has to be embedded in the broader context of economic and social policy issues. A major aspect in the field of mental health economics and mental health policy is financing mental health care. The project will focus on actor-relationships and incentives within mental health care financing systems. It will start with an international comparison of mental health care financing. For an in-depth analysis of alternative financing models a theoretical framework, based on the principal-agent theory and the mental health matrix will be established. Guidelines and policy documents of reforms will be used for the construction of a normative framework for the analysis. The final part of the project will focus on the development of alternative financing models for Austria with consideration of the political and legal contexts.