History and Structure
GÖG (Gesundheit Österreich GmbH) was set up in its current form by federal law on August 1st 2006. Three units are now integrated in GÖG: The ÖBIG (Österreichisches Bundesinstitut für Gesundheitswesen – Austrian Health Institute), as well-known research institute established in 1973 by federal law to govern and promote the Austrian Health Care System. The FGÖ (Fond Gesundes Österreich – Fund for a Healthy Austria), established in 1992 with the task to improve health promotion and prevention in Austria. The third unit - the BIQG (Bundesinstitut für Qualität im Gesundheitswesen - Federal Institute for Quality Assurance in Health Care), was established in July 2007 by federal law, as supporting institution of the Ministry of Health. HTA is located at BIQG in the Department of Quality and Efficiency. GÖG is a limited company, owned by the Federal State, a non profit organization, independent in its scientific work and mainly financed by the Ministry of Health.
GÖG has a permanent staff of 146 persons, the expertise of GÖG as well as the staff of Department of Quality and Efficiency is multidisciplinary, i.e. economists, physicians, psychologists, biologists, statisticians, regional planners.

Mission
The primary task of GÖG in the field of HTA is to support the implementation and institutionalization of HTA into the Austrian Health Care System. As we have a decentralized Health Care System, a nationwide coordination and establishment of necessary structures and standards for HTA processes and methods as well as regular information exchange are important.  Therefore a National Strategy for Health Technology Assessment was developed in cooperation with the major health care stakeholders. National and international HTA-Agencies are acting as consultancy body.

How GÖG works
Before the BIQG was established we accomplished assessments for other HTA-institutions like DAHTA@DIMDI and IQWiG from Germany and their standards for evidence-based principles, peer review, dissemination etc. have been followed. In 2008 and 2009 assessment reports, rapid reviews and short inquiries are requested from the Ministry of Health. Now we have designed a public topic selection process where everyone can bring in a topic for assessment. The collected topics will then be prioritized by the main stakeholders in the health care sector. We have developed a HTA-process-manual, were quality standards like peer review process (experts for the particular topic) are specified. To ensure nationwide quality standards we are developing - in cooperation with the main HTA-institutions - a methods-manual. Our main task is to enforce institutionalization of HTA in the Health Care Sector as a nationwide coordinator.

Dissemination activities
After an external review process all reports are published in full on the GÖG website and can be downloaded free of charge. Additionally, regularly mailings are done and the results of our work are published in the Newsletter of the Ministry of Health and in journals. We are organizing HTA-Workshops and training for decision makers and officials at national and regional level as well as annual HTA-Symposia. Furthermore we developed a HTA-Guide as a web tool for everybody: http://hta-guide.biqg.at/ to enforce information exchange.

Current projects (a selection):
• Effectiveness of a general Diabetes screening
• Effectiveness of spirometry for early detection of COPD
• HIV screening for pregnant women
• Methods Manual
• Cost of illness study
Future plans
• Continuing implementation of the National Strategy for Health Technology Assessment
• Developing economic guidelines
• Establishing a service for short inquiries
• Enforcing publicity
• Increasing national and international cooperation