Abstract
BACKGROUND: Public Health and Emergency Medicine operate in different dimensions and levels of healthcare. Yet, both disciplines ultimately observe identical issues from the two ends of the spectrum: the lack of general health and systems literacy often results in non-critical emergency service deployments, thus deterring elsewhere needed resources, and inadequate access to healthcare services frequently forces patients to contact the emergency line 112 seeking medical attention. In recent years, this issue has been addressed in some countries with the implementation of “community paramedics” - a concept similar to community nurses and hereby exemplifying the parallels between the two disciplines. Emerging evidence points towards the significant potential for population health outcomes in Europe stemming from public health and emergency medicine synergies, including reduction of health inequities and public cost and improving health care quality. Challenges arising from demographic changes in the population structure further exacerbate the increasingly demanding landscape of emergency medicine and the need for close and strategic alliances between stakeholders in health care and services on all system levels. These and further topics, such as telemedicine, AI, and health literacy, highlight the overlapping matters as well as the substantial need for collaboration between public health and emergency medicine. AIM: This skills building seminar aims to bring the parallels between Public Health and Emergency Medicine to the forefront and facilitate a discourse on their theoretical, scientific and empirical synergies between the two disciplines. STRUCTURE: The seminar will consist of two parts beginning with the panelists’ presentations. Dr Zhelyazkova will introduce the topic through the theoretical and scientific interaction between public health and emergency medicine. Following, Benjamin Belurovski will provide insights on the topic “When Prevention Is the Emergency: Lessons from Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and Cervical Cancer for Bridging Public Health and Emergency Care”, highlighting connections between prevention and emergency care. The first workshop half will be rounded up by Dr Mexia's report on the public health opportunities to be involved in mass casualty response and how to include it in training of first responders, civil protection coordination and Hospital Emergency response. The second part will be interactive and dedicated to the empirical synergies between the two disciplines (10 minutes). The chair begin with moderating a Q&A session with the workshop participants. Simultaneously, using an interactive engagement tool, workshop participants will be able to submit further ideas, topics and research questions at the intersection of emergency medicine and public health. In the last 3 minutes, the chair will summarize the workshop outcomes and offer an outlook towards a follow-up workshop on the topic. KEY MESSAGES: • The theoretical, scientific and empirical intersection of public health and emergency medicine represents a widely unexplored but significant area with considerable potential for collaboration. • Public health and emergency medicine complement and can help each other on the path towards facilitating precisely target-oriented and sustainable population health and care. SPEAKERS/PANELLISTS: Ana Zhelyazkova LMU Klinikum, Munich, Germany Benjamin Belurovski Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany Ricardo Mexia INSA - National Health Institute Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Lisbon, Portugal