Visit of the Austrian Health Minister Andrea Kdolsky

Austrian Federal Minister of Health Dr. Andrea Kdolsky visited Boston and Washington, D.C. from September 19 - 25, heading a large business delegation to exchange information on trends in U.S. health care and hospital management. In Boston the delegation met with academics and health care leaders at Harvard and M.I.T. and at private research institutes and associations to discuss how to cover the medical costs of an aging population at a time when medical treatment and pharmaceutical drugs are becoming more expensive.

While in Washington, D.C., Minister Kdolsky met with Dr. “Patch” Adams, whose Gesundheit Institute has been an important voice in designing new models for delivering health care based on new methods of ‘healing’ in a non-technological setting. The delegation paid a visit to the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) campus in Bethesda, Maryland, where Minister Kdolsky met with scientists in the field of health and health management as well as with several Austrian scientists working on research at the NIH Clinical Research Center. On a final stop in New York, the delegation was briefed by a private company involved in rating health care and hospital systems. The visit ended with a presentation given at the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University.