Immediate assessment and management of acute medical emergencies.

The pre-hospital management of acute medical emergencies can be difficult. Critically ill patients must be evaluated quickly and accurately to ensure that immediately life-threatening problems are identified and treated. Figure 1 and Box 2 provide a structured method for rapid assessment in the pre-hospital phase. Although the majority of medically unwell patients will not require an aggressive resuscitation phase during the primary survey, the use of the structured approach in all patients will ensure that 'time critical' pre-hospital medical emergencies are identified. This approach also emphasizes that once immediately correctable problems have been treated, the priority is transfer the patient to the nearest resuscitation facility.