The current state of hospital-based emergency medicine in Germany.

Germany has a long tradition of having physicians, often anesthesiologists with additional training in emergency medicine, deliver prehospital emergency care. Hospital-based emergency medicine in Germany also differs significantly from the Anglo-American model, and until recently having separate emergency rooms for different departments was the norm. In the past decade, many hospitals have created "centralized emergency departments" [Zentrale Notaufnahme (ZNAs)].

Surge capacity concepts for health care facilities: the CO-S-TR model for initial incident assessment.

Facility-based health care personnel often lack emergency management training and experience, making it a challenge to efficiently assess evolving incidents and rapidly mobilize appropriate resources. We propose the CO-S-TR model, a simple conceptual tool for hospital incident command personnel to prioritize initial incident actions to adequately address key components of surge capacity. There are 3 major categories in the tool, each with 4 subelements.

The critical airway, rescue ventilation, and the combitube: Part 2.

Emergency and unexpected difficult airway management can rapidly deteriorate into a critical airway event (e.g., inadequate mask ventilation, failed tracheal intubation, or cannot ventilate-cannot intubate).

The critical airway, rescue ventilation, and the combitube: Part 1.

Emergency and unexpected difficult airway management can rapidly deteriorate into a critical airway event such as "cannot ventilate, cannot intubate" (CVCI). A critical airway event (i.e.

Survival after ethylene glycol poisoning in a patient with an arterial pH of 6.58.

This ethylene glycol poisoning case had a blood pH of 6.58 and severe hypothermia (30.9 C).