Emergencies: Uniform standards for emergency services planned

According to the plans of the traffic light coalition, there will be uniform nationwide standards for the rescue service to provide quick help in emergencies. “The protection of life, limb and health must not depend on the zip code,” said Green Party health expert Janosch Dahmen to the German Press Agency. In the future, a quality committee made up of states and health insurance companies should ensure “that people everywhere can rely on the same high quality of care, uniform standards and cooperative interfaces.”

Rescue service will have its own service area in the future

The coalition wants to include a reorganization of the emergency service in a planned law for a reform of emergency care in clinics and practices, as Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) announced. A draft that is now available provides for the rescue service to be established as an independent service area. This means that the reimbursement of the costs for this “will no longer be made dependent on the implementation of a transport in the sense of travel costs,” according to the coalition factions’ draft, which is available to the dpa.

Dahmen explained that with the inclusion of the rescue service in the social security code, a well-founded and differentiated regulation would finally be created. “In this way, we ensure that sensible new care offers from the emergency services, such as the use of tele-emergency doctors, community emergency paramedics or greater cooperation between several control centers, will be adequately financed in the future.”

Emergency Call Improvements Catalog

In order to ensure nationwide minimum standards, according to the draft, a “quality committee” should be set up at the Federal Ministry of Health. It should have four members each based on proposals from the states and the statutory health insurance companies. The committee, which is independent of instructions, should issue a catalog with recommendations on structures and processes: for example on the qualifications of staff and the equipment of control centers, which also include “tele-emergency doctors” to support professional patient care.

Standards should also be developed for the automated location of emergency calls and for software-supported query systems for emergency calls. The committee should also deal with the promotion of first aid by laypeople and the involvement of registered first aiders via mobile alarm apps. The focus is also on the use of standardized and networked software in control centers across district and state borders.

Calls for more modern control centers

The background is long-standing problems and overloads. The Björn Steiger Foundation called for improvements in the more than 240 control centers nationwide. They would have to use standardized, quality-assured query algorithms to decide whether an emergency call was about a minor case or a matter of life and death. A technical boost and larger organizational units are also necessary – for example in order to be able to implement instructions for resuscitation. So far there have been control centers in which two people sometimes sit at night.

Dahmen said that warnings from experts had been ignored for years. “The result is overloaded emergency rooms and emergency services, rising costs and often only average quality of care.” The reform ensures that even those who do not need transport or hospitalization are well cared for through specialized services such as tele-emergency medicine, emergency care teams and psychiatric crisis services.