A look behind the scenes at the Aalen emergency room: This is how we save lives!

A look behind the scenes at the Aalen emergency room: This is how we save lives!

The central emergency room (ZNA) at the Ostalbklinikum in Aalen is an essential part of emergency care. Under the direction of Dr. Caroline Grupp's emergency room operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This enables a quick response to medical emergencies that come to the ZNA via reception at a special counter. Transport in an ambulance ensures that patients are delivered quickly and safely. There, patients' vital functions are monitored using state-of-the-art equipment, while the shock room plays an important role in initial treatment, equipped with a computer tomography (CT) scanner to quickly diagnose and treat serious injuries. Swabian Post reports that monitoring the urgency of treatments is crucial to the flow in the emergency department.

A focus of the work in the ZNA is on interdisciplinary collaboration. The team is made up of emergency physicians and duty doctors in various specialist areas such as pediatrics, neurology, internal medicine, surgery and gynecology. This structured approach makes it possible to rely on specialists if necessary in order to diagnose and treat emergencies efficiently. In addition, the ZNA ensures targeted allocation of patients, with an emergency room being set up for extended monitoring and diagnostics. The aim is to offer quick and effective treatment, which in many cases includes short-term inpatient treatment so that patients can then be transferred to outpatient care. Ostalb Clinics emphasizes that this can contribute sustainably to a positive outcome of the treatment.

Emergency room overload

However, central emergency departments in Germany face enormous challenges. A recent study published in Deutsches Ärzteblatt shows that many CNAs are overloaded. Professor André Gries, who led the study, found that of over 34,000 patients treated in 2019, almost 60% were able to be sent home after an examination. Nevertheless, the admission rate for patients referred by a doctor was significantly higher, which shows that the emergency rooms are often used for patients who could also be treated on an outpatient basis. DIVI further describes that 47.7% of patients are admitted by the emergency services and 16% of self-admissions have to be treated as inpatients.

A central problem is the lack of equipment in many practices, for example in areas such as X-rays or ultrasound, which often lead to unnecessary admissions. The study suggests that almost 30% of patients admitted to CNA by emergency physicians were discharged after an evaluation. The overload of emergency departments is attributed to space and staffing constraints, and there are proposals to develop emergency centers to improve the situation.

Given these developments, it remains crucial to optimize emergency care in Aalen and beyond and meet the needs of patients as emergency departments respond to the ever-growing number of emergencies.