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“As AGNF, we are working to establish a high level of healthcare competence and care as the standard. This is only possible with excellently trained staff. We therefore want to make relevant information quickly and easily accessible to participants interested in our training courses. This is made possible by bildung37° as the AGNF competence factory for acute and emergency medicine,” says Klaus Meyer, CEO of AGNF, explaining the motivation behind the introduction of the new brand. The newly launched portal www.bildung37grad.de also provides information on training to become a paramedic and vocational training to become an emergency paramedic. Further education and training courses can be booked there easily and directly.

Bernd Obst, District Administrator of the Fürth district and member of the AGNF Supervisory Board, congratulated the team on the launch of the new educational brand: “I am delighted that the AGNF is constantly evolving. The new bildung37° brand gives AGNF’s educational offering even more visibility and thus ensures excellently trained specialists in the field of acute and emergency medicine – in the region and far beyond.”

The educational work is already emphasized by the brand name. The addition 37° figuratively stands for the optimum human body temperature and therefore the optimum environmental conditions for effective learning. Sebastian Habicht, Head of the vocational schools for emergency paramedics and Head of Training and Further Education, explains the background to the brand name: “Everyone who attends one of our training courses should feel completely at ease with us and experience an optimal learning environment – through good organization, good information, good teaching & presentation and a positive atmosphere.”

The project aims to strengthen the Ukrainian population’s ability to help themselves by qualifying multipliers in special first aid and establishing a rescue service specializing in the transfer of seriously injured and sick patients within Ukraine.

The AGNF team visited project partners in Lviv and Kyiv, where they also met with political representatives and healthcare stakeholders. The course of the project was presented and discussed there. Needs and prospects for future projects were also discussed.
Among other things, the project team carried out the journey with its own intensive care transport vehicle in order to gain experience in transporting patients over longer distances. Klaus Meyer, CEO of AGNF, was part of the team: “Above all, the visit is also a sign of appreciation for the local partners. Initiating a project from a safe distance is one thing. Experiencing the situation on the ground is something else.” Visits included the largest orthopaedic and rehabilitation center in Ukraine – Unbroken in Lviv, the project partners SFI Ukraine and LEF as well as the Special Training Center in Kyiv. A team of journalists accompanied the AGNF during the entire stay. The footage will be made into a documentary for ZDF and broadcast in a few weeks’ time.

The team was particularly impressed by how Ukrainian citizens manage to live a comparatively normal everyday life despite the war and the constant threat of air strikes – at least in the two cities they visited. In conversations, however, you also realize how two years of war weigh on people’s souls.

We are therefore delighted that we will be able to work even more closely with our cooperation partner, the Sankt Marien children’s hospital in Landshut, in the future. The AGNF has already held regular training events for the hospital in recent years.

This has now culminated in an established cooperation. As part of this, the European Paediatric Advanced Life Support (EPALS) course format is offered to employees of the children’s hospital and all interested parties in Landshut. The EPALS courses are specially designed to train the advanced care of pediatric emergencies and are aimed at nurses, doctors and ambulance staff.

In addition, the children’s hospital will in future conduct its internal resuscitation training using the European Paediatric Basic Life Support (EPBLS) course format. It is worth noting that as part of this training, every employee is certified by trainers from the European Resuscitation Council. The EPBLS course covers the basic measures for resuscitation of children and infants as well as the early recognition of critically ill children.

The Sankt Marien Children’s Hospital will be able to offer the EPBLS course format for its employees independently in the future. To make this possible, eleven employees at the children’s hospital were trained as EPBLS instructors in June 2023. This instructor training follows an international standard, includes a logical and stringent didactic concept and is also certified by the ERC.

We are delighted to have gained a strong cooperation partner in the region with the Sankt Marien Children’s Hospital in Landshut!

A comprehensive AED structure is a key factor in improving survival after cardiac arrest. The professional rescue service takes an average of 8-10 minutes to arrive. For this reason, first aiders (e.g. relatives, colleagues, witnesses) play a decisive role in resuscitation by acting safely. There are more than 70,000 cases of sudden cardiac death in Germany every year. Statistically, this amounts to 180-220 people affected per year in the city and district of Fürth. Only a few survive such an event. The aim is to raise public awareness of the issue and reduce the inhibition threshold for using an AED in an emergency. “50, perhaps even 100 of these people could survive each year if we succeed in improving the conditions in the city and district of Fürth,” says Klaus Meyer, Chairman of the AGNF, which has taken over the project management on behalf of the city and district of Fürth.

There are already around 150 AED devices in the city and district of Fürth, but only 10 of them are public and therefore always accessible to first aiders. The project aims to establish a network of around 250 publicly accessible devices in the coming years. It is not just the purchase of the device that is involved. It must also be stored protected from the weather in a heated and clearly visible box, the necessary maintenance intervals must be completed, consumables replaced and a battery replacement financed after four years. A special feature of the Fürth project is that all AED devices are equipped with a special chip that enables live geodata tracking. This means that the AGNF is always informed whether a device is working properly, what the battery charge status is, whether it is being used and where the device is currently located. CardiLink from Fürth is contributing this innovation. After use, the device is made ready for operation again and is available for use on site after a short time. All these services were previously the responsibility of the owner, which often prevented them from being placed in public spaces.

“As far as we know, the “Fürth SCHOCKT!” project is the only project in Germany to date with such a comprehensive range of services and solutions,” says Klaus Meyer.

AED sponsors are being sought who are willing to finance a publicly accessible device. For example, at a company location, at a sports club, the church community or through a private donation. This can be taken over for 4 or 8 years.

In addition to the AGNF, the district and the city of Fürth, other partners are also supporting the project. The Bavarian Red Cross District Association of Fürth, the city and district fire departments, the Fürth Hospital, the Fürth Doctors’ Network, the “Fürth drückt!” initiative, the Greuther Fürth football club and infra fürth as an infrastructure and media partner are also involved.

In the coming year, the project is to be supplemented by a smartphone-based alerting system for first responders. The aim is to activate pre-registered first aiders in the immediate vicinity of an incident who can quickly initiate resuscitation measures. A very successful project that has been established in Freiburg for 6 years entitled “Region of Lifesavers” serves as a blueprint.

The generous donations made it possible to procure and deliver almost 10 tons of relief supplies, including medicines and medical consumables for the care and treatment of sick and wounded people as well as hygiene articles and medical equipment. As part of three large transport trips between March and May, more than 15 clinics in the greater Kiev area, Kharkiv, Irpin, Drohobych and Zaporizhzhya were supplied with urgently needed relief supplies. Collaboration with local doctors and newly acquired cooperation partners helped to plan donations in line with needs and targets.

The personal impressions and testimonials from those affected during the tours continue to fuel the commitment of the AGNF project members and so even today, 6 months after the start of the initiative, all resources are being activated to help the people in Ukraine. In July, the AGNF was able to provide medicines worth over 6,000 euros at short notice for an aid shipment to the conflict region of Luhansk. A few weeks later, the BRK Fürth organized a large-scale donation campaign in which 28 used care beds, around 50 wheelchairs and walkers and hospital furniture went to a clinic in Drohobych. The AGNF used its network to establish contact between donors and recipients and supported the campaign with additional manpower.

In addition to the contribution we can all make today, we are already thinking one step ahead as part of the aid project. What will it take to build a new medical infrastructure in Ukraine after the war? And how can the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Notfallmedizin Fürth e.V. (Fürth Emergency Medicine Working Group), as an educational institution, support the local players in this challenge? There is still much to do and the AGNF gratefully accepts your continued support, with the promise that all donations will be passed on as direct added value to the people in Ukraine.

The profession of emergency paramedic has only existed since 2014. Emergency paramedics are trained for three years and are the highest non-medical qualification in the German rescue service. Today, they take care of many emergency patients independently, such as administering pain medication. They also provide complex life-saving measures, e.g. administering emergency medication in the event of a heart attack, until an emergency doctor arrives. High-quality and intensive training is therefore necessary to fulfill this task profile.

The current class of emergency paramedics will complete their training in September 2022. In preparation for the upcoming state examination and the demanding everyday working life, an action day was held at the AGNF at the end of June. The students of the final year each occupied an ambulance in threes and had to deal with different missions in the city area, accompanied and observed by their practical instructors and the teachers of the vocational school. The simulated missions are then evaluated and debriefed with the team.

Such a training day offers the unique opportunity to experience school and work in a safe environment and still have to work independently. We were supported in the organization of the action day by the rescue services of the BRK, the JUH and the ASB, who provided emergency vehicles. In addition, the town of Stein provided premises to enable operations to be carried out at real locations. The Stein fire department supported the day of action with personnel and equipment. A total of over 50 people were involved.

We have spent the last few days procuring the necessary medicines and medical supplies. The problem here was that various things are already sold out across Europe, such as special products for hemostasis.

Nevertheless, a delivery weighing almost 1.5 tons was put together last Wednesday and loaded onto two vehicles. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the many donors, donors in kind and the AGNF employees who helped with the procurement and loading. We would particularly like to thank the Fürth Clinic, SIMple medics, Bexamed and Orange, who all supported us with generous donations in kind. We would also like to thank everyone who diligently shared our article and thus brought the campaign to the attention of the general public. We were also very touched by the personal messages we received, so many of you offered your help. Within just ten days, we were able to successfully carry out this fantastic aid campaign thanks to the fantastic commitment of each individual. Many thanks to all of you.

On Thursday morning at 9 a.m. we set off for Ukraine. The journey went smoothly and we reached the Ukrainian border at around 20:00. For their part, the Ukrainian colleagues started in the Kiev region with two vehicles. Contrary to plans, colleagues were not allowed to enter the country for the handover at the Korczowa border crossing. So we first had to “travel out” to the Ukrainian side to be able to hand over the goods in the “neutral zone”. Shortly after midnight everything was done and our contact Yuri Kryvonos, the pediatrician from the Kiev area, was very happy about the first aid delivery!

The transport has now safely reached the greater Kiev area and the delivery has already been distributed to the individual functional areas. We received very, very positive feedback from our colleagues on site

We will now continue to determine the needs in the hospital, but also in other hospitals, and organize a second transport as soon as possible.

Je suis Ukraine!

This is why Fürth Hospital and the Fürth Emergency Medicine Working Group (AGNF), as established players in the healthcare sector, have taken the initiative to create a joint education, innovation and science platform for medical, nursing, rescue and emergency response professionals in the form of the Institute for Emergency Medical Education, with the ultimate aim of continuously improving patient safety.

“With the founding of INOB, we have succeeded in taking an important and forward-looking step in the education market and expanding the emergency medicine education market here in the Nuremberg, Fürth, Erlangen metropolitan region alongside the Institute for Emergency Medicine and Medical Management (INM) in Munich,” says Managing Director Oliver Riedel.

The SIM box, which enables virtual and practical patient simulation, is a unique tool in Germany for the continuous further training of medical staff: using audiovisual projection and unique soundscapes, individually adapted, realistic virtual learning environments are presented in which medical professionals train emergency situations. Other important training topics include the promotion of intercultural competence in emergency situations and de-escalation in emergency situations.

Bavaria’s Minister of the Interior, Joachim Herrmann, also emphasized the importance of modern training opportunities at the founding event of the Institute for Emergency Medical Education in Fürth. “The coronavirus pandemic shows us how important a functioning and effective healthcare system is. Well-trained specialist personnel are indispensable. We are already very well positioned here in Bavaria,” says Herrmann.

In addition to establishing high-quality educational programs and innovative research projects, the INOB is pursuing the expansion of a strong network and links to university structures. Ansbach University of Applied Sciences and the Wilhelm Löhe University of Applied Sciences in Fürth have been permanent cooperation partners of the INOB from the very beginning.

At the AGNF, you can spend a year getting to know educational work at first hand. We organize a variety of different emergency medical training courses for doctors, ambulance staff, nurses and many other professional groups and run a vocational school for training to become an emergency paramedic.

If you are interested in adult education and emergency medicine, send us your application!

Our team is looking forward to meeting you!

Please send applications to:

Emergency Medicine Working Group Fürth e.V.
Klaus Meyer, Head of the educational institution
Deutenbacher Street 1
90547 Stone

Klinikum Würzburg Mitte is the official venue for resuscitation training courses

The “Newborn Life Support” (NLS) and “Advanced Life Support” (ALS) courses are offered, which provide training in advanced resuscitation measures for newborns and adults. In addition to imparting basic theoretical knowledge, the training courses are characterized above all by a high practical component.

Doctors, nursing staff, midwives and rescue service personnel work together on an interdisciplinary basis during the realistic training. The exercise situations reflect the everyday life of all professional groups and are intended to improve cooperation in real emergency situations.

The courses are aimed at all interested parties from hospitals, emergency services and private practices. In line with the current situation, the courses are held in compliance with strict hygiene concepts. Further information and online registration can be found on the AGNF website (www.agnf.org).

Photo:

From left to right: Christofer Krieg, Emergency Coordinator at the KWM, Sebastian Habicht, Head of Training and Further Education at the AGNF,

Simon Veit, Assistant to the Director of Medicine at the KWM, and Dominik Landeck, KWM Managing Director (Photo: Klinikum Würzburg Mitte)

With our project “Advanced Life Support (ALS) Courses in Uganda”, we have trained over 160 people and 15 instructors in Advanced Life Support together with our local partner, Makerere University, and the European Resuscitation Council (ERC). The trained instructors will soon be able to conduct certified resuscitation courses completely independently of us as part of the ERC course format. The standardized and continuously modernized ERC course formats, which are already being taught throughout Europe, will thus be established in Uganda in the long term. We are delighted that the trained local instructors now want to get started with their own course center! The building has been rented, the first courses are planned and the know-how and the will are there to improve emergency care in Uganda in the long term. The only thing missing now is the interior design – we pray for your help. The building has several course rooms, an office, kitchen, storage rooms and toilets. In order to operate the course center and expand the range of courses on offer, our project partners urgently need the following equipment:

60 classroom chairs 10 €/each
10 classroom tables 30 €/each
3 office desks 100 €/each
4 office chairs 40 €/each
2 office cabinets 50 €/each
1 Entrance area table 100 €/piece
1 Entrance area chair 50 €/piece
5 Whiteboard 100 €/each

Donate now for “Emergency medicine education in Uganda – furniture for course center” at our partner betterplace.org

Information about the predecessor project, Advanced Life Support (ALS) courses in Uganda, can be found here.

You can find the Facebook page of the course center here.

We have canceled many of our Facebook posts that were planned for these weeks. They would have been out of date and would not have done justice to the current situation. Today we would like to give you an insight into our CORONA everyday life. The school closures led to some new challenges for our team, especially for our teachers at the vocational school for emergency paramedics:

– How do we maintain close contact with our students?
– How can the individual learning process continue to be supported and positively influenced?
– Which teaching methods can be used sensibly and successfully over a greater distance?

The intensive use of our online learning platform, as well as the introduction of telephone and video conferences between class leaders and their students, were the first steps towards the most effective possible compensation for the canceled lessons.

Our teachers also provide their students with learning packages that present the content of the teaching phases in a condensed form and enable them to work on tasks from home. The use of e-learning in combination with regular telephone and internet conversations enables us to provide our students with intensive support. We try to do as much as possible from our home office.

In the area of further education and training, we are working intensively on new and proven concepts, striving for improvements and updating them. In addition to introducing new training courses, such as “Hygiene Officer in Healthcare”, we are primarily developing our patient safety offering and our SIMBULANCE.

As a course center of the European Resuscitation Council (ERC), we prepared intensively for the publication of the guidelines in October 2020. In addition to the GRC Resuscitation Dialogue in Cologne, a satellite event was planned in the greater Nuremberg/Fürth/Erlangen area. Last Friday, the publication of the new guidelines was postponed by one year.

At the beginning of last week, we provided two of our ventilators to a peripheral clinic on request. One of them is already in use in an intensive care unit, while the second is available for the emergency care of patients. Even if the occasion is not particularly pleasant, we are still pleased that our appliances are being put to more sensible use during this time than standing in stone in the cellar.

Next week, an outpatient care center will go into operation in the district of Fürth. This should provide additional medical capacity at the height of the pandemic, which is expected to reach us in the coming weeks. We provide conceptual and organizational support and are also involved in operations.

What is your situation? What has changed for you in the last few weeks? Write us your impressions and experiences.

Stay healthy everyone and hope to see you soon, ¬

Your team of the Working Group for Emergency Medicine Fürth e.V.

The district of Fürth commissioned AGNF with the planning and implementation. Within a week, our employees at the Dillenberg School Center in Cadolzburg worked hard to prepare everything for commissioning. It was important to ensure that there was no overlap between potentially infectious patients and pupils, even when school resumed. This could be ensured with a triage (patient triage) upstream of the building, spatially separated treatment rooms, as well as a corresponding control of the patient flow via separate entrances.

Potentially infected citizens were registered via their GP or contacted the practice directly by telephone to make an appointment. As a rule, patients could be treated in the practice on the same day. On arrival, the patient was triaged according to the probability of a COVID-19 infection (according to the RKI scheme) and the medical urgency (adapted ESI triage concept).

If the infection triage was positive, the patient was examined under full protection by a doctor and a healthcare professional in a separate treatment area. A swab test for SARS-CoV-2 was also routinely carried out and the test results were often available the following day. Patients with corresponding respiratory symptoms were referred directly to clinical care.

Fortunately, many of the patients only showed moderate flu-like symptoms. These patients were often able to remain in home quarantine. Patients who were not suspected cases were treated in the building. All the resources that are found in a GP practice were available there. In detail, these are

Laboratory diagnostics
12-lead ECG
Ultrasound
Various rapid laboratory tests
The daily utilization of the practice fluctuated greatly. On some days, up to 30 patients were examined and treated. However, due to the nationwide lockdown, the number of COVID-19 cases in the district of Fürth is fortunately declining. This helped to avoid overloading medical care capacities. Fortunately, the district of Fürth is therefore currently able to suspend the operation of the Cadolzburg specialist practice.

For us at AGNF, this was and is an interesting and exciting change from the familiar and routine of everyday education. It was also very important to us to make a contribution to society in the current crisis situation.