International E.M.S. Congress “Health Emergency: a resource and an opportunity for everyone. International models in comparison”
(June, 8-10 2010)
The system dedicated to face pre-hospital emergency situations on the territory was activated in Italy in 1992 with the aim of ensuring all citizens both assistance in extra-hospital emergency and correct hospitalization. Since 1994, in Italy you can dial the unique phone number “118” and receive the appropriate assistance depending on the seriousness of the emergency. The Lazio district activated its territory Emergency System in 1995. After 15 years, the “Azienda Sanitaria Regionale” dedicated to E.M.S. (ARES 118) as well as the “Società Italiana 118”, a scientific association aiming at spreading the culture of emergency, would like to organise a Congress whose end-goal is to produce a consensus document proposing an ideal model that could set the basic parameters needed to grant the organization of an effective, efficient, economically sustainable pre-hospital emergency system where the timeliness of the intervention, the professionalism of operators as well as the interaction of both health components do not make the difference between life and death. The mentioned document will be issued with the additional aim of creating a common language facilitating proper actions during emergency situations in case of International catastrophes, which are more and more frequent nowadays. Furthermore, we would like to start up an International working group meeting every two years in order to consider all common progresses and up-to-dates whose contribution can lead to continuous improvement of emergency actions as well as of the entire organization.
That is the reason why the people in charge of E.M.S. of megalopolis, metropolitan areas and wide territories have been invited to the meeting to present their systems.
The President of the Congress
Prof. Mario Costa
VIII National Congress “118 E.M.S. in an evolving society”
(June, 10-12 2010).
Pre-hospital emergency system has gained a fundamental role considering the Public Health Service and it has reached an organizational and operational maturity in an incredibly short term when a document responding to the health needs of people and aiming at the organization and integration between pre-hospital and hospital health care – both allowing pre-hospital timeliness and professional interventions as well as an optimized health care - was issued in 1992.
An increasingly precise and flexible organization as well as the recognition of the activity of the 118 system led to a deep change of pre-hospital emergency assistance features which, starting from the emergency call, represented a unique reference point to all the people.
E.M.S. represents a crucial element of the health system since it is linked with the variability of interventions as well as with the employment of innovative technologies which are widely spread in this field because they assure not only timeliness intervention but also its effectiveness. In this sense an effective E.M.S. allows the reduction of evitable deaths as well as the reduction of possible series.
The system 118 in Italy has sensibly grown during these last years, even if not homogeneously, it now represents the link between citizens, pre-hospital health care and hospitals. Furthermore it follows the direction of sanitary politics where the strengthening of pre-hospital activities corresponds to more specialized hospitals, more and more connected and integrated with the territory thanks to the employment of the most up-to-date technologies. The creation of a net of systems, services and pathologies is the next goal that the public health service in general and 118 in particular aim at achieving.
The VIII National Congress of the Italian Society “Sistema 118” to be held in the Lazio district (Rome) comes on the 15th anniversary of the system in this district and it stresses on the peculiarity of pre-hospital health care as well as on the need of an organizational and operational homogeneity which allows the compatibility of procedures and technologies in order to encourage the interchangeability of resources for a prompt use both on a national and – in case of catastrophes – on an International level. For this reason we have associated the National Congress to an International one with the aim of stating the existing realities and issuing an homogeneous model which allows a continuous and common growth.
The President of the Congress
Prof. Mario Costa