Baden-Baden/Berlin. In Germany, resuscitation of emergency patients rarely takes less than eight minutes. According to calculations by the SWR Data Lab, 24 emergency care areas nationwide meet the recommended guidelines, but more than 130 emergency care areas do not. No information is available for the remaining areas.
For the research published on Wednesday by SWR-Story, SWR-Wissen and SWR Data Lab, requests for data and structures were made to 283 emergency service areas across Germany and evaluated. Medical societies recommend that 80 percent of resuscitation cases be treated professionally on site within eight minutes.
According to the study, of at least 55,000 people resuscitated each year, around 7,400 survive. According to calculations by the SWR Data Lab, an additional 10,000 people could survive through structural improvements and better funding of the emergency service. According to the research, one problem is that many aids, such as apps, telephone instructions for resuscitation or standardised consultations on emergency calls, are not sufficiently available or used. Quality management systems have also only been introduced in half of the rescue service areas surveyed; in the other half, they do not exist or no information was provided;
Overall, less than half of all emergency service areas fully responded to the central questions of the SWR research request. The federal government is currently working on reforming emergency care in Germany. Among other things, this will involve better network structures such as rescue control centers and emergency rooms in hospitals. (KNA)