Share:
Overcrowded emergency room patients will be sent to doctors' offices in the future
The emergency rooms of the hospitals are at times so crowded that seriously ill people are often treated too late. In order to defuse the situation, clinicians should first clarify the arrival of patients in the future, whether an emergency actually exists or the supply in the normal consultation of a contract doctor is sufficient. Are we being sent away from the ER now? In the following we inform about the innovations and show, with which symptoms you should continue to alert the emergency physician immediately.
Rescue stations are overloaded nationwide
Burns, a fractured leg, high fever, or heart piercing: in the evenings, on public holidays and on weekends, flocks of patients rush to emergency rooms for treatment. However, many of them are not actually a real emergency and could therefore be taken care of during normal office hours.
Many patients in the rescue centers are not experts from the real "emergency". These can be referenced in the future after a short review by the doctor in a normal practice. (Image: schulzfoto / fotolia.com) To change this situation in the emergency departments, clinicians should now check in advance as of April 1, whether in the incoming patients an urgent diagnosis and therapy is necessary. The Kassenärztliche Bundesvereinigung (KBV) hopes that this will relieve the burden on the emergency outpatient departments, especially in the clinics. "The doctors will hopefully get more time for 'real' emergencies," said the Chairman of the Board of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians for Lower Saxony (KVN), Mark Barjenbruch, in a recent release.
Two minutes for assessment of health status
For people who do not need urgent emergency treatment, the emergency departments can in the future settle the so-called clarification flat rate. According to the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, this amounts to 4.74 euros per day and 8.42 euros per night per patient. In terms of time, this means about two minutes, which a doctor then has to assess the complaints of the patient.
From the perspective of the doctors, however, this is far too short. Because even general symptoms such as fever, cough or headache can be an indication of serious diseases such. be a pneumonia or severe flu. Accordingly, neither a systematic questioning of the state of health nor a laboratory diagnosis can be carried out within two minutes according to the criticism of many physicians.
No time for calming the patients
"I already have a stomachache, I have to say that honestly! This way of working is not what we ourselves expect of us doctors. Patients come to us because they are concerned that they usually have a serious illness. They are uncertain, they are laymen. And then I have a duty to take care of them, "Dr. med. Andreas Hüfner, Head of the Emergency Department at the St. Josef Hospital in Regensburg, in conversation with the Bavarian Radio (BR).
The Bavarian hospital company e.V. (BKG) is also facing the new clarification flat rate. "For such a clarification and investigation to offer an amount of 4.70 euros, which is based on a calculation of two minutes, which we consider an affront," stresses the managing director of BKG, Siegfried Hasenbein, opposite the BR.
In acute cases use the medical on-call service
Regardless of the different opinions on the new regulation, this causes uncertainty in many patients. When does one count as a "real" emergency? Which cases will not be treated in the emergency department in the future? It is important that patients themselves look closely and assess whether or not they need an emergency service. Unfortunately, the medical on-call service, which can be reached around the clock at 116 117, is not yet known (if the normal practice of the family doctor (for example in the evening or at the weekend) is not open.
"The 116117 is available for on-call duty outside office hours and 112 for emergencies such as serious accidents, stroke or heart attack. Patients are well advised to contact the KVN on-call service for cases of acute but not life-threatening conditions outside the regular opening hours of the doctor's office. There they look after experienced doctors, "says Mark Barjenbruch.
Important: interpret the alarm signal correctly
Is it "only" a thick cold, often help with simple home remedies for cold or cough? Or is there behind the complaints a pneumonia, which must be treated immediately and possibly even requires a hospital stay? Here, a call to the medical on call service can often provide help.
However, for some symptoms, you should never lose time and go to an emergency room immediately or alert 112 emergency services. These include sudden chest pain or acute puncture in the chest, paralysis, feelings of numbness, unconsciousness or fainting and the suspicion of a fracture.
The same applies if shortness of breath, blurred vision or bleeding suddenly occur. For example, if it is a heart attack or a stroke, every minute is crucial. The sooner the treatment starts here, the better the chances of survival or recovery. (No)