[Development of emergency medical services in Germany - Western part of Germany]. / Entwicklung des Notarztwesens in Deutschland - Westdeutschland.

Initially the premise of the rescue services was to deliver patients to medical care as quickly as possible. Due to the demands of the Heidelberger surgeon Kirchner a rethinking was initiated prior to World War 2. It was not until the 1960s that this concept was taken up again and physicians were incorporated into the rescue services. A prerequisite for this in the technical field was the development of physician escorted rescue vehicles for the prehospital management of road accident victims. After the economic and medical benefits of the deployment of emergency physicians had been demonstrated, the mandatory participation of emergency physicians was laid down in the laws on rescue services by the West German federal states. With increasing acceptance, there was a shift of the patient collective from accident victims to acute internal medical and neurological emergency cases. In order to realize the necessary efficacy of the cost-intensive organization the German Medical Council formulated guidelines for the qualification of emergency physicians.

[The role of patient flow and surge capacity for in-hospital response in mass casualty events]. / Grossschadensereignisse - Behandlungskapazitäten und Zuweisungsstrategien.

Mass casualty events make demands on emergency services and disaster control. However, optimized in- hospital response defines the quality of definitive care. Therefore, German federal law governs the role of hospitals in mass casualty incidents. In hospital casualty surge is depending on resources that have to be expanded with a practicable alarm plan. Thus, in-hospital mass casualty management planning is recommended to be organized by specialized persons. To minimise inhospital patient overflow casualty surge principles have to be implemented in both, pre-hospital and in-hospital disaster planning. World soccer championship 2006 facilitated the initiation of surge and damage control principles in in-hospital disaster planning strategies for German hospitals. The presented concept of strict control of in-hospital patient flow using surge principles minimises the risk of in-hospital breakdown and increases definitive hospital treatment capacity in mass casualty incidents.

Monitoring of in-hospital cardiac arrest events with the focus on Automated External Defibrillators--a retrospective observational study.

BACKGROUND: Patients with cardiac arrest have lower survival rates, when resuscitation performance is low. In In-hospital settings the first responders on scene are usually nursing staff without rhythm analysing skills. In such cases Automated External Defibrillators (AED) might help guiding resuscitation performance. At the Wuerzburg University Hospital (Germany) an AED-program was initiated in 2007. Aim of the presented study was to monitor the impact of Automated External Defibrillators on the management of in-hospital cardiac arrest events. METHODS: The data acquisition was part of a continuous quality improvement process of the Wuerzburg University Hospital. For analysing the CPR performance, the chest compression rate (CCR), compression depth (CCD), the no flow fraction (NFF), time interval from AED-activation to the first compression (TtC), the time interval from AED-activation to the first shock (TtS) and the post schock pause (TtCS) were determined by AED captured data. A questionnaire was completed by the first responders. RESULTS: From 2010 to 2012 there were 359 emergency calls. From these 53 were cardiac arrests with an AED-application. Complete data were available in 46 cases. The TtC was 34 (32-52) seconds (median and IQR).The TtS was 30 (28-32) seconds (median and IQR). The TtCS was 4 (3-6) seconds (median and IQR). The CCD was 5.5 ± 1 cm while the CCR was 107 ± 11/min. The NFF was calculated as 41 %. ROSC was achieved in 21 patients (45 %), 8 patients (17 %) died on scene and 17 patients (37 %) were transferred under ongoing CPR to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU). CONCLUSION: The TtS and TtC indicate that there is an AED-user dependent time loss. These time intervals can be markedly reduced, when the user is trained to interrupt the AED's "chain of advices" by placing the electrode-paddles immediately on the patient's thorax. At this time the AED switches directly to the analysing mode. Intensive training and adaption of the training contents is needed to optimize the handling of the AED in order to maximize its advantages and to minimize its disadvantages.

Preclinical care of children with traumatic brain injury (TBI).

The fact that injuries caused by accidents are the most common cause of death in children and adolescents in Germany gave rise to the study, which mainly deals with traffic accidents in this group. 200,221 records of emergency-service physicians in Bavaria which cover the period 1995-1999 were analysed with respect to the importance of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in children and adolescents (n = 721 - representing 45.8% of traffic injuries in this age group). The highest incidence of TBI was in summer (34.3%) and in the evening between 16.00 and 18.00 (23.7%). The time taken between accident and arrival of the emergency services was 8.8 +/- 3.1 minutes. The preclinical phase lasted 19.3 +/- 5.8 minutes. The probability of having an accident with TBI increases with age, the maximum being in the age-range 7 - 14 years (61.6%). Boys (63.2%) were almost twice as susceptible to injury as girls. 36.8% of all cases had no noticeable neurological disorder, 71.1% resulted in a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score of 15. Only 6.3% had most severe neurological disorders, resulting in a GCS score of 3 - 5. Circulation parameters in the form of adapted hypotension were abnormal in only 3.4%, 21.9% of the children had a bradycardia and in 12.3% the blood oxygen saturation fell below 94%. The most frequent intervention was the laying of an i.v. line for infusions. 8.6% of the patients were intubated to allow for ventilation with oxygen. Analgesics were given in 16.7% of the cases. In 84.7% of all cases, the condition was stable and in only 3.3% was a severe deterioration to be observed. The assessments were made using both the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and Glasgow Coma Scales (GCS). Discrepancies occurred, as a NACA scale of I - III and a GCS score of < 9 was reported in 4.9% of cases. In contrast a NACA scale of IV - VI was reported with a GCS score of 15 in 30% of all cases. TBI symptoms in children are less obvious than in adults, which leads to an age-dependent restriction in implementing therapeutic measures. If these restrictions are a result of misinterpretation of the situation or due to a lack of practice in the preclinical phase, then further training and education of the physicians involved in emergency service work are necessary.