Waiting for hours in overcrowded emergency rooms: According to Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD), this will soon come to an end. The Federal Cabinet today approved a bill aimed at reforming emergency care. According to the minister, patients with acute symptoms will soon be able to receive treatment more quickly – at the right place.
This is changing in hospital emergency rooms
The project envisages the widespread establishment of so-called “integrated emergency centers”. In these centers, the classic emergency room is to be combined with emergency care practices. If a patient arrives at the emergency room with severe abdominal pain, their case is first assessed clinically at a central point of contact. If the symptoms point to appendicitis, for example, they go to the emergency room. If it is merely a serious gastrointestinal infection, the patient is referred to the doctor in the emergency room.
The aim is to ease the burden on emergency rooms. Almost every third patient in the emergency room could actually be treated by a doctor in private practice, said Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach when presenting the bill in Berlin. In Bavaria, rural clinics in particular are overwhelmed. Because where there are no resident doctors in rural areas, people often go to the emergency room – even if it is not a real emergency, according to hospitals. The draft reform is intended to provide a solution here with the practices of the affiliated emergency services.
Integrated emergency centers have already been tested in Bavaria
The concept of integrated emergency centers is already being implemented in Bavaria in a pilot project at the RoMed Klinikum Rosenheim. The Munich Bogenhausen Clinic also combines an emergency room with a statutory health insurance emergency practice in its emergency center. Bavarian Health Minister Judith Gerlach (CSU) sees the new emergency centers as an important component of the emergency reform.
Emergency calls must be answered by emergency centers
Gerlach also sees the planned nationwide network of the emergency number 112 and the emergency medical service number 116 117 as positive. The two contact points have so far operated completely separately from each other in most federal states. Patients who require urgent medical help outside of doctor’s opening hours, but it is not an emergency, can call 116 117.
If Karl Lauterbach has his way, the two numbers should be better interconnected in future. If a patient calls the emergency number with only mild symptoms, they should in future be transferred to 116 117 “without any loss of time”, said the minister. Operators of the on-call medical service should also be able to access data already recorded during the emergency call. In Bavaria, the two emergency numbers have been linked in this way since December 2023.
Better service outside of office hours?
According to the bill by the Federal Minister of Health, anyone who falls ill outside office hours but is not in an emergency should receive better care. Here, Lauterbach holds resident doctors responsible. In future, the on-call service of the statutory health insurance will offer 24-hour telemedicine services as well as home visits.
In Bavaria, people are taking this critically. Health Minister Gerlach fears that the measures will not be manageable in rural areas, where there is already a shortage of doctors. The Bavarian Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians has made a similar statement. In order to attract sufficient staff to its plans despite the shortage of doctors in rural areas, Karl Lauterbach wants to rely on financial incentives, among other things. The aim is to motivate practicing doctors to become more involved in emergency care.
Emergency services must also be reformed
The bill to reform emergency care now has to pass through the Bundestag. Lauterbach plans to introduce another reform in parliament at the same time. His ministry is currently working on a Emergency services reformsaid the health politician. The aim is to provide equal care throughout Germany. The proposed reform will be discussed in the Bundestag as part of the emergency care bill approved today. Both reforms should come into force early next year, if possible.