We thank your correspondents for their comments and addenda.
We agree with Hinkelbein on the need to establish a medical director for emergency services. Within the self-governing bodies, medical quality management is not handled with the required neutrality. Furthermore, all sites will need to be obliged to participate. The particular constellation of the area committee in Baden-Württemberg allows for health insurers and service providers to substantially determine emergency medicine, but on the other hand it has let them ignore the legal regulations concerning response times for years.
We thank Kohlund for his comment as it reflects the position taken by many emergency physicians, who think in the face of increasing use of emergency medical services that the emergency medical services are dispatched incorrectly. We wish to counter his comment by saying that such statements can be supported only by well documented cases and complete data. Unfortunately we have to admit to just such deficits. The affinity of many emergency physicians for having complete documentation is not great and requires improving. The MEES, derived from the internationally used Revised Trauma Score (RTS) (1), is an indispensable tool in this.
Büttner introduces the acknowledging number (RMZ) from the federal state of Hesse into the discussion and is hoping for more streamlined documentation as a result. The information gain is not comparable, since this confirmation number is validated only as information about the quality of the medical dispatch center (2). It therefore represents an additional parameter.
Footnotes
Conflict of interest statement
The authors of all contributions declare that no conflict of interest exists according to the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.
References
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