An important addition to the rescue service in Bonn and the Rhein-Sieg district is expected to be in place by 2025: The district and city want to jointly establish a tele-EMS system to further improve care for people in the area. On Tuesday, January 23, 2024, another important step was taken towards this goal. The Mayor of Bonn, Katja Dörner, and Sebastian Schuster, District Administrator of the Rhein-Sieg district, signed the contract for a public law agreement for a sponsoring association, which is necessary as a legal basis to define and set up the service.

The representatives of the two local authorities came together for the signing ceremony in the control center of Fire Station 1 on Lievelingsweg - which will also be home to the future tele-emergency medical center, as Bonn is the core provider. Professor Wolfgang Holzgreve, Medical Director and CEO of the UKB, also signed the agreement. The UKB provides the doctors required to implement the telemedicine system.

"Our joint signing of the contract is an important step towards further improving healthcare for people in the region. The joint service is another example of the long-established and good supra-regional cooperation," said Lord Mayor Katja Dörner. She also thanked the steering group with representatives from Bonn and the Rhein-Sieg district, which drew up the agreement as part of the inter-municipal project work.

"The introduction of the tele-emergency doctor system is a sensible and good addition to the existing rescue service," emphasizes District Administrator Sebastian Schuster. "It is not intended to replace the emergency doctors, but to help further improve the fastest possible medical care for patients."

"We are delighted to be working with the UKB to provide the medical component of the pioneering tele-emergency doctor concept and thus further improve the quality of care for Bonn, the Rhein-Sieg district and the region, also in view of the shortage of medical specialists. Experienced UKB emergency physicians, who are also qualified as tele-emergency physicians, will use their high level of expertise and experience to provide telemedical advice and guidance to the rescue service personnel on site with the patients in such a way that the best possible care is made possible for those affected," says Prof. Wolfgang Holzgreve, Medical Director and Chairman of the Board of the UKB.

Through targeted deployment, tele-emergency physicians can relieve the burden on the "traveling" emergency physicians in the established emergency physician service that is available throughout the country and, in suitable cases without acute danger to life, take over and accompany patient care via telemedicine. Particularly in cases where no emergency physician involvement was initially planned or is perhaps not absolutely necessary, the rescue personnel can receive low-threshold medical advice and support at the scene. The technical transmission of the patient's measured values and the derived ECG can be interpreted by a doctor and targeted, medically prescribed drug therapy can be administered by the emergency medical personnel.