Emergency in healthcare: Long snakes - what to do with a shortage of doctors?

Emergency in healthcare: Long snakes - what to do with a shortage of doctors?

Salzburg, Österreich - On January 8, 2025, the challenges in the health sector in Salzburg become increasingly clear. Long queues in front of the primary care centers and overcrowded hospital outpatient clinics cause displeasure among the patients. Richard Barta, the chamber board of the Medical Association for Salzburg, does not see the current chaos as a sign of a shortage of doctors, but as an urgent indication that an effective patient control system is necessary. He regrets that despite the goals formulated in the last health reform, such as "digitally before ambulant", this system has not yet been implemented, as ORF Salzburg reports .

The patient control system, also known as PLS, originally comes from emergency and disaster medicine and is intended to mark the registered patients quickly and clearly in the event of a mass use. It enables efficient handling of injuries in critical situations, such as after a big accident or a disaster. The system is known in Germany under the name "injured suspension menu" and serves the clear identification and registration of the patients. This information is crucial for the effective care and coordination in the healthcare system, as explained in the contribution of Doccheck Flexikon .

A crucial note for patients is that the hospital legacies are not responsible for sick leave. Of the approximately 55,000 people who visited a hospital sampling last year, many had only minor suffering or were looking for sick leave. This underlines the need to establish a functioning patient control system in order to cope with the challenges in the queues.