• Sanja Predavec, Selma Sogorić, and Drazen Jurković.
• Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of the Republic of Croatia, Zagreb, Croatia. sanja.predavec@mzss.hr
• Acta Med Croatica. 2010 Dec 1;64(5):405-14.

AbstractEmergency medical services (EMS) in the Republic of Croatia are currently organized as part of the existing health care system and delivered in the form of pre-hospital and hospital EMS. The pre-hospital EMS are delivered by standalone EMS Centers, EMS units set up in community health centers, and by general practitioners working in shifts and on call in remote and scarcely populated areas. In hospitals, each ward usually has its own emergency reception area, and only in a couple of cases there is an integrated emergency admission unit for the entire hospital. The current EMS structure does not meet the basic requirements that would make an EMS system optimal, i.e. equal quality, equal access, effectiveness and appropriate equipment. The EMS Restructuring Project is part of the Croatian health care system reform and is addressed by the National Health Development Strategy 2006-2011. As part of restructuring efforts, the Croatian National Institute of Emergency Medicine, 21 County Institutes of Emergency Medicine and county-level call centers are going to be set up. In addition, the project will introduce the following: integrated emergency admission areas at hospitals; telemedicine as part of emergency medicine; emergency medicine specialty for physicians and additional specialized training for nurses/technicians; separation of emergency and non-emergency transport; standards for vehicles and equipment and guidelines/protocols/algorithms for care. The Croatian National Institute of Emergency Medicine is an umbrella EMS organization. It shapes the EMS in Croatia and proposes, plans, monitors and analyzes EMS actions in Croatia. In addition, it submits a proposal of the Emergency Medicine Network to the minister, sets standards for EMS transport, and coordinates, guides and supervises the work of County Institutes of Emergency Medicine. County Institutes organize and deliver pre-hospital EMS in their counties. Integrated hospital emergency admission units represent a single point of entry for all emergencies at a particular hospital. Upon triage, depending on the level of emergency, patients are provided with appropriate care and treatment. The introduction of EMS specialty for physicians and additional specialized training for nurses/ technicians is going to increase competencies of all EMS team members. The main objectives of the EMS Restructuring Project to be achieved in the 5-year period are the following: to reduce the response time of pre-hospital EMS teams to 10 minutes in urban areas and 20 minutes in rural areas in 20% of team interventions; to bring patients to hospital within the "golden hour" in 80% of cases; to have 200 physicians specialized in emergency medicine; and to have 220 nurses/technicians that have successfully completed their specialized training in emergency medicine. The objectives are going to be monitored through indicators as part of the World Bank Project for which data have already been collected throughout Croatia: number of interventions; number of emergency interventions; time between call receipt and arrival to scene; time between call receipt and arrival to hospital emergency reception area; percentage of arrivals to hospital by EMS vehicles within 12 hours of symptom onset; polytrauma and cardiac arrest survival rate before admission to hospital; time spent in hospital emergency reception areas and integrated hospital emergency admission units; polytrauma and cardiac arrest survival rate within 24 hours of hospital admission; number of integrated hospital emergency admission units per county; and number of pre-hospital EMS teams per capita.

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