AUSTRIA

Foundation year

1991

Webpage

www.schlafmedizin-asra.at

Number of members

200 members (Dec. 2011)

Composition of members (degree, specialties, subspecialties, etc.)

physicians: 164 ( neurology, psychiatry, pulmonology, internal medicine, ENT, pediatrics, dentistry); researchers: 7; nurses: 7; technicians: 17; others: 5

Historical perspective of the society

The ASRA was founded following an international meeting in Nice / France in October 1991. The first national meeting took place in 1992 with invited speakers from Germany ( J. H. Peter, T. Podszus). Since then annual meetings have taken place across the country. The highlight was to host the ESRS meeting 2006 in Innsbruck.

Since the foundation there have been 7 presidents (named in chronological order):
Zeitlhofer J., 1991 – 1995
Bolitschek J., 1996 – 1998
Saletu B., 1998 – 2002
Popovic R., 2002 – 2006
Högl B., 2006 – 2010
Kerbl R., 2010 – 2012
Mallin W., 2012 – 2016
Högl B., 2016 –

Important sleep physicians / researchers in the history of the NSS

(in alphabetical order) Univ. Prof. Dr. Birgit HÖGL (Innsbruck), Univ. Prof. Dr. Bernd SALETU (Vienna), Univ. Prof. DDr. Josef ZEITLHOFER (Vienna)

Number of Sleep Medicine Centers

Currently there are 31 ASRA-certifi ed sleep labs in Austria
www.schlafmedizin-asra.at/schlaflabore.html

Number of Sleep Research Centers

3 (one at the Medical University of Innsbruck and two at the Medical University of Vienna)

Accreditation / Certification procedure

According to the guidelines of the ESRS and the DGSM with slight national modifications

Educational programs

Education for sleep technicians, nurses and doctors during the annual scientific meetings

Present activities, working groups, task forces

Working group of the ASRA for specialisation in sleep medicine since 2008.

Activity of members of the ASRA in international societies and working groups of the ESRS / ANSS,

WASM, ERS (HERMES Sleep), IRLSSG, IRBDSG, COST B 26 and others.