Abstract
At the end of life patients with a life-limiting disease are often admitted to emergency
departments (ED). Mostly, in the setting of an ED there may not be enough time to
meet the needs for palliative care (PC) of these patients. Therefore, integration
of PC into the ED offers a solution to improve their treatment. In the outpatient
setting a cooperation between prehospital emergency services, the patient’s general
practitioner and specialized outpatient PC teams may allow the patient to die at home
– this is what most patients prefer at the end of life. Furthermore, due to the earlier
integration of PC after admission the hospital stay is shortened. Also the number
of PC consultations may increase. Additionally, a screening of PC hneeds among all
patients visiting the ED may be beneficial: to avoid not meeting existing PC needs
and to standardize the need of PC consultation. An example for such a screening tool
is the “Palliative Care and Rapid Emergency Screening” (P-CaRES).
Im Zusammenhang mit der alternden Gesellschaft steigt der Bedarf an palliativmedizinischer
Versorgung. Vor dem Hintergrund des rasanten medizinischen Fortschritts gestaltet
sich jedoch das Abwägen von „Optimum“ und „Maximum“ an Therapie immer schwieriger.
Der folgende Beitrag beleuchtet die Einbindung der Palliativmedizin in Notfallmedizin,
Rettungsdienst und Notaufnahme.
Schlüsselwörter
Palliativmedizin - Notfallmedizin - Rettungsdienst - Notaufnahme
Key words
palliative care - emergency medicine - emergency medical services - hospital emergency
service
