Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2019 Nov 4;27(1):100.
doi: 10.1186/s13049-019-0676-5.

The Danish prehospital emergency healthcare system and research possibilities

Tim Alex Lindskou  1 , Søren Mikkelsen  2 , Erika Frischknecht Christensen  3 , Poul Anders Hansen  4 , Gitte Jørgensen  5 , Ole Mazur Hendriksen  6 , Hans Kirkegaard  7 , Peter Anthony Berlac  8 , Morten Breinholt Søvsø  3
Affiliations
Review

The Danish prehospital emergency healthcare system and research possibilities

Tim Alex Lindskou et al. Scand J Trauma Resusc Emerg Med. .

Abstract

The emergency medical healthcare system outside hospital varies greatly across the globe - even within the western world. Within the last ten years, the demand for emergency medical service systems has increased, and the Danish emergency medical service system has undergone major changes.Therefore, we aimed to provide an updated description of the current Danish prehospital medical healthcare system.Since 2007, Denmark has been divided into five regions each responsible for health services, including the prehospital services. Each region may contract their own ambulance service providers. The Danish emergency medical services in general include ambulances, rapid response vehicles, mobile emergency care units and helicopter emergency medical services. All calls to the national emergency number, 1-1-2, are answered by the police, or the Copenhagen fire brigade, and since 2011 forwarded to an Emergency Medical Coordination Centre when the call relates to medical issues. At the Emergency Medical Coordination Centre, healthcare personnel assess the situation guided by the Danish Index for Emergency Care and determine the level of urgency of the situation, while technical personnel dispatch the appropriate medical emergency vehicles. In Denmark, all healthcare services, including emergency medical services are publicly funded and free of charge. In addition to emergency calls, other medical services are available for less urgent health problems around the clock. Prehospital personnel have since 2015 utilized a nationwide electronic prehospital medical record. The use of this prehospital medical record combined with Denmark's extensive registries, linkable by the unique civil registration number, enables new and unique possibilities to do high quality prehospital research, with complete patient follow-up.

Keywords: Denmark; EMS; Emergency number; General practitioner; Out-of-hours; Prehospital.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Denmark. The five Danish regions with population as of the first quarter of 2019
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Medical service accesses. The options available for citizens in need of medical services. GP, General practitioner. OOH GP cooperatives, Out-of-hours general practitioner cooperatives. OOH 1813, Out-of-hours Medical Helpline 1813 in the Capital Region
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Thomson N. Emergency medical services in Zimbabwe. Resuscitation. 2005;65(1):15–19. doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2005.01.008. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Van Gelder CM, Frantz R, Bogucki S. Emergency medical services in Connecticut. Prehosp Emerg Care. 2005;9(2):219–226. doi: 10.1080/10903120590924861. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Krüger AJ, Skogvoll E, Castrén M, Kurola J, Lossius HM. Scandinavian pre-hospital physician-manned emergency medical services-same concept across borders? Resuscitation. 2010;81:427–433. doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2009.12.019. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Vaitkaitis D. EMS systems in Lithuania. Resuscitation. 2008;76(3):329–332. doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2007.07.028. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Pozner CN, Zane R, Nelson SJ, Levine M. International EMS systems: the United States: past, present, and future. Resuscitation. 2004;60(3):239–244. doi: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2003.11.004. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources

-