Emergency Medical Services (EMS) has transformed over the last decade from patient transport to advanced medical care provided at scene and during transport to definitive care. Emergency medical dispatch is now the gatekeeper to emergency care in many EMS systems and the provider of telephone assisted lifesaving instructions from CPR to emergency childbirth. The dispatch role is more than identification, prioritizing and dispatching the right resources to the patient, now serving as an important clinical hub.
But emergency medical services are also undergoing development to reflect changes in healthcare delivery with centralization of highly specialized medical care in fewer hospitals and emergency departments and a greater emphasis on locally provided care where appropriate. This has led to an increased focus on prehospital care and is also why EMS plays an even more important role today.
There has been no single EMS congress in Europe to address the common challenges EMS faces across Europe. That is why EMS Copenhagen, The Capital Region of Denmark hosted the first European Emergency Medical Services Congress (EMS2016) in the Spring of 2016. As part of EMS2018 the European EMS Leadership Network was established.
During EMS2016 international experts within emergency medical services and resuscitation entered a historic agreement about the Establishment of a Global Resuscitation Alliance – a global network focused on collaboration to increase survival from sudden cardiac arrest. The participants commit themselves to the ambitious target of increasing survival rate by 50 percent. The European EMS Leadership Network is part of the executive board of the Global Resuscitation Alliance.