[New missions for emergency department].

There are more than 16 millions emergency department visits per year, 15 millions calls to SAMU and 600,000 mobile intensive care unit interventions. The knowledge of the sum of all these medical problems represents an incomparable database offering the possibility of numerous studies and programs of education. The emergency physicians do not routinely offer screening and brief intervention as part of their current clinical practice. However, for the next years, the strikes will be to develop, besides the mission of care, epidemiologic studies, programs of screening and prevention. Concerning epidemiologic interventions, the preventive actions in ED have be proven efficient as well as in prevention of tobacco addiction, falls in older patients, HIV contamination more specifically in teenagers. This strategy prevents those who are infected from entering treatment before serious complications occur. In the same time, it prevents them from taking measures to avoid transmitting the virus. Syndromic surveillance must be implemented in order to prevent epidemic phenomena or bioterrorism attacks. Simultaneously, the problem of overcrowding must be resolved.