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In France, there are two types of emergency rooms: the specialized services (called SAU) and the proximity units (called Upatou).
Service specialized in emergency care
An hospital (public or private) can have a specialized service (service spécialisé d'accueil et de traitement des urgences) only if it can already take care of the most probable trauma and disease in classical hospitalization: resuscitation unit, general and internal medicine, cardio-vascular medicine, pediatrics, anesthesiology-resuscitation, orthopedic surgery and viscus surgery, including gynaelogical surgery. The hospital must have
- two operating rooms (and a wake-up room) with personnel on duty that allow operation anytime;
- services that can perform examination and analyses anytime: medical imaging (radiography, medical ultrasonography, computed tomography, angiography...), haematology, biochemistry, de toxicology laboratories...
The specialized service is managed by an emergency physician. An emergency physician must be on duty anytime, and a specialized physician can be called anytime depending on the specific pathology (i.e. on duty in the hospital, not in the emergency service).
The team must have, in addition to the emergency physician:
- two nurses ;
- care assistants, possibly child care assistants;
- a social worker;
- a receptionist;
The service is organized in three zones:
- a reception zone,
- a zone for the examination and the cares (including intensive cares),
- a zone for the watch over short durations (patients waiting to go out or for a transfer in another service).
There are also specialized poles (pôle spécialisé d'accueil et de traitement des urgences) that can anly take care of specific pathologies or specific types of patients (e.g. pediatrics).
Proximity units
"Emergency medicine in France"