Der Anaesthesist
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Review
[Internal hospital emergency management : Concepts for optimization of patient safety in hospitals].
Critical incidents in hospitals can often be predicted hours before the event and can mostly be detected earlier and presumably avoided. Quality management programs from US hospitals to reduce deaths following a severe postoperative complication (failure to rescue, FTR), have in this form not yet become established in Germany. A sensitive score-based early warning system for looming complications is decisive for successful in-hospital emergency management. ⋯ Communication skills are particularly required not only to be able to handle the immediate emergency situation but also to organize the downstream diagnostics and escalation of treatment; however, the MET is only one of the links in the in-hospital rescue chain, which can only improve the patient outcome when alerted in a timely manner. Feedback systems, such as participation in the German Resuscitation Registry, allow reflection of one's own performance in a national comparison. The chances offered by a MET will only be fully realized when it is integrated into an in-hospital emergency concept and this determines the added value for patient safety.
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The continuous rise in calls for emergency physicians and the low proportion of indicated missions has led to a loss of job attractiveness, which in turn renders services in some areas unable to sufficiently staff units. This retrospective analysis evaluated the frequency of emergency and general medical interventions in a ground-based emergency physician response system. ⋯ No specific emergency physician interventions were required in the majority of call-outs. The current model of preclinical care does not appear to be patient-oriented and efficient. Furthermore, the low proportion of critically ill and injured patients already leads to a reduction in attractiveness for emergency physicians and may introduce the threat of quality issues due to insufficient routine experience and lack of training.
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The number of interhospital transfers is constantly increasing because of specialization of medical facilities, capacity balancing between intensive care units as well as earlier rehabilitation procedures. This leads to an increase in requests for emergency physicians to accompany patient transfers. This study investigated whether clarification of interhospital transport by an emergency physician at the dispatch center can optimize the use of emergency services resources. ⋯ The immediate clarification of interhospital transport requests by an emergency physician at the dispatch center leads to a significant reduction in unnecessary medical accompaniment of patient transfers. The choice of an appropriate transfer vehicle and staff should not be left to the requesting hospital physician alone.
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The intensive medical care of COVID-19 patients presents the deployed personnel with as yet unknown challenges. For example, protective equipment is now being extensively used, which was otherwise only used in selected situations. Working in such an environment is to be evaluated differently under the aspect of occupational safety than other patient care, especially as more than 1900 suspected cases of a SARS-CoV-19 occupational disease were reported among healthcare workers in Germany. ⋯ Furthermore, in a pandemic there is a basic danger of PPE shortage and recycling of face masks is under discussion. Therefore, usage of non-EU certified PPE may come into effect but this has to follow the requirements defined by European regulations. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the currently relevant rules and regulations in Germany.