(Vienna, 28 November 2023) Sabine Pleschberger will take up the newly created Professorship of Nursing Science (§99(1)) at MedUni Vienna on December 1, 2023. The aims of the endowed professorship, which is funded by the "PflegerIn mit Herz" association with EUR 1.5 million, are research and teaching in the field of nursing and the implementation of innovative solutions to counteract the nursing crisis.
"With the endowed professorship for nursing science, we will be anchoring a highly relevant topic at MedUni Vienna in the coming years. We are delighted to have this opportunity to once again fulfill our social mission with the appointment of Sabine Pleschberger," says Markus Müller, Rector of MedUni Vienna. "MedUni Vienna is fully aware of the challenges facing the healthcare system in the present and future. In doing so, not only the specific subject areas, but also interdisciplinary topics of great social importance, such as nursing science, are taken into account with the utmost care."
The subject "Nursing Science" should be represented within a medical-scientific environment in research and within the diploma programs of human medicine and dentistry established at the Medical University of Vienna as well as in the doctoral programs. Training and further education in the field of nursing, in particular in intensive care and other specialized training in the field of nursing, is to be established. The endowed professorship is initially agreed for a period of three years.
Ageing with dignity and in society
As part of the endowed professorship for nursing science, which is linked to the Center for Public Health at the Medical University of Vienna, Sabine Pleschberger will devote her research to questions of ensuring care in an ageing society. This includes the interplay between formal care, supervision and informal support. "For 25 years now, my scientific interest has centered on the question of how high-quality care can be ensured in an ageing society until the end of life," explains Sabine Pleschberger, "ultimately, it's about the big question of how we can grow old in society and live well until the end. Finding and developing humane solutions for this is also an important task of nursing science, and I would like to dedicate myself to this as part of the endowed professorship."
Based on questions of care at the end of life - keyword hospice movement and palliative care - Pleschberger deals with innovative concepts/models for dealing with care tasks in the broadest sense. "There is enormous potential here, a willingness to help and care in the population that must be taken into account when we address these issues. But no one can or wants to take on 'everything'," she explains, "which is why we will have to think in terms of networks in the future if we want to master the tasks of care, support and nursing in society." Care science also has the task of understanding the perspective of the people affected and, based on this, designing care and developing services. Professional care is needed for such care networks to function. This is where the many threads of informal support and formal assistance can come together and be networked ("community nursing").
It is also against this background that Sabine Pleschberger's research in the recent past has increasingly focused on occupational nursing. It is a dynamic field in Austria, as the legislative amendments of recent years have not only created new professions, but also new access routes. This includes academic training for the higher level of healthcare and nursing. "Cooperation between the professional groups - both within nursing and among the other healthcare professions - is another focus of my research work as part of the endowed professorship. It has been shown that it contributes significantly to nurses remaining in their field of work. Attractiveness and satisfaction in the profession are key issues when it comes to ensuring that well-trained and experienced nurses remain in the profession and are committed to it. This must be the core component of any strategy to combat staff shortages," says Pleschberger.
Using empiricism and research to combat the care crisis
"Our association "PflegerIn mit Herz" has raised public awareness of the topic of care and strengthened the professional image of carers," explains association president Günter Geyer. "We have given care in Austria a face and a voice and have made the many outstanding achievements of people who care for those in need of care visible. Now the time has come to look to the future and take the next step. We look forward to embarking on this new path together with MedUni Vienna and Sabine Pleschberger. With this professorship, which we are funding with 1.5 million euros, we want to develop scientific solutions as well as present and implement concrete solutions to improve the situation for people in need of care, carers and relatives of people in need of care in Austria."
100,000 nursing staff shortage
"Around 80 percent of people in need of care are cared for at home: The most important pillar in the domestic care system are family caregivers: in Austria, 947,000 people are involved in some way in the care and support of a relative So just under one million people in Austria are family caregivers, which is around ten percent of the Austrian population," explains Robert Lasshofer, Vice President of the "PflegerIn mit Herz" association. "The number of old people and people in need of care is increasing - with a simultaneous shortage of care by 2030. According to the Ministry of Social Affairs' 2019 forecast of care staff requirements, the number of over 85-year-olds in Austria will increase by 45% by 2030. At the same time, a third of those working in nursing and care are expected to retire by 2030. This means that there will be a shortage of 75,000 to 100,000 carers by 2030 and a third of the currently active carers will have retired. We urgently need innovative solutions, which MedUni Vienna's endowed professorship will develop with immediate effect, to ensure a functioning, efficient and sustainable care system in Austria."
About the person
Sabine Pleschberger is a DGKP (qualified healthcare nurse), social, nursing and health scientist and completed her habilitation in nursing science and palliative care at the University of Klagenfurt in 2011. For many years, she has worked in research and teaching in the university and non-university sector on the following topics: Care for Older People, capturing the user perspective in healthcare and the associated methodological challenges, hospice work and palliative care, professional development in nursing and ethical questions on the above-mentioned topics. Most recently, she was a senior health expert at Gesundheit Österreich GmbH and a visiting professor at the Institute of Nursing Science at the University of Vienna.