This investigation gives a summary of the performance of the public emergency medical services in the Federal Republic of Germany for 1998/99. Research project 87.003/1998 on analysis of the performance level in the emergency medical services in 1998 and 1999 recorded and analysed a representative random sample of data to evaluate the performance of the public emergency medical services in the Federal Republic of Germany. The main results of the research project were as follows: In 1998/99 approximately 9.9 million missions and a total of 11.5 million mission journeys were carried out annually by the public emergency medical service in Germany as a whole. There was a rate of approximately 121 missions per 1,000 inhabitants per year; on average work-days, approximately 30,400 requests for emergency medical assistance were received nationally by the rescue communication centres. At the weekend the number of requests received sank to approximately 21,100 on average Saturdays and 17,800 on average Sundays; 41% of the missions were classified by the communication centre staff as emergencies, 59% as transportation of injured persons; almost half of all emergency missions (49%) were carried out with the assistance of an emergency physician (emergency physician mission). Almost half of the road accidents (48%) were attended by an emergency physician; approximately 81% of the emergency physician missions were completed via the rendezvous system and 19% via the medical service unit system. This meant that the rendezvous system was used much more frequently than the medical service unit system in 1998/1999 as well. approximately every 12th emergency mission was for a traffic accident. Other reasons for emergency missions with and without an emergency physician were distributed as follows: internal medicine emergency 44%, other emergency (e.g. crime, suicide, urgent blood or organ transports) 33%, other accident (e.g. accident at home, at school or during sport) 13% and occupational accidents 2%; approximately every 13th notification of an emergency physician was for a road accident. The other missions involving emergency physicians were distributed as follows: internal medicine emergencies 58%, other emergencies 28%, other accidents 6% and occupational accidents 1%; the types of assistance used in mission journeys carried out during the period 1998/99 in Germany as a whole were distributed as follows: emergency vehicles 49%, ambulances 35%, emergency physician's cars 14%, ambulances with emergency physician 2% and other 1%; approximately 2 out of every 5 mission journeys were carried out using a flashing blue light and siren. This corresponds to an annual figure of 4.9 million mission journeys in Germany as a whole where the light and siren are used; in 1998/99 the light and siren were used unnecessarily in about 9% of the journeys. This corresponds to an annual figure of over 976,000 for Germany as a whole; the percentage of cases where the light and siren were used unnecessarily increased with the urgency of the mission. There were about 670,000 such cases for emergencies and about 300,000 for the transportation of injured persons for Germany as a whole; The time required for assistance to set off after a call had been received was on average 1.2 minutes for mission journeys where light and siren were used and 7.2 minutes for the remainder of the mission journeys; the average time required for assistance to arrive (the time taken for the first means of assistance to arrive is used as a basis for this calculation) was 7.8 minutes for missions where light and siren were used; 95% of the emergencies were reached within 16.0 minutes by assistance of one form or another; the average time required for assistance to arrive at accidents on urban roads was 6.6 minutes during the daytime and 7.4 minutes at night; at road accidents on rural roads this figure was 9.0 minutes during the day and 11.0 minutes at night; if missions for emergencies and transportation of injured persons which took less than two hours are differentiated according to how long they lasted, the average length of mission journeys was 46.3 minutes where light and siren were used and 49.7 minutes where they were not. (Author/publisher)
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