Emergency care

All around the world, acutely ill and injured people seek care every day.  First contact health workers manage children and adults with medical, surgical and obstetric emergencies, including injuries and sepsis, heart attacks and strokes, asthma and acute complications of pregnancy.  Prioritising an integrated approach to early recognition, resuscitation and treatment of emergency conditions reduces the morbidity and mortality from a wide range of diseases across the life course.  

WHO's Clinical Services and System Unit is dedicated to strengthening health systems to deliver emergency and critical care, particularly in first contact locations, and to supporting the development of quality, timely emergency and critical care accessible to all. 

The recent pandemic has revealed pervasive gaps in the provision of emergency and critical care, and reinforced the need for an integrated approach to these services.  Emergency and critical care is an essential part of the health system and emergency care serves as the first point of contact for many around the world. 

Especially when there are logistical or financial barriers to healthcare access, people may present for care only when symptomatic with acute illness or injury. The Disease Control Priorities project estimates that over half of deaths and over a third of disability in low- and middle-income countries could be addressed by the implementation of effective emergency and critical care.  

Emergency care is powerfully aligned with the primary health care agenda as it provides first contact clinical care for those who are acutely ill or injured.  Prehospital and facility-based emergency care is a high impact and cost-effective form of secondary prevention. Ongoing critical care ensures adequate monitoring, reassessment and continuing comprehensive treatment to maximize patient outcomes.  

Emergency and critical care play an important role in public health. Public health solutions for the impact climate change health should include strategic strengthening of health systems to deliver acute services such as emergency and critical care. Disease surveillance at facilities delivering emergency and critical care is essential to guide primary prevention and outbreak response. Building capacity for emergency and critical care is the vital foundation for the health systems ability to surge during larger scale health emergencies such as conflict, natural disaster or outbreaks of epidemic disease. 

The World Health Assembly has called on WHO to prioritise integrated emergency, critical and operative care for universal health coverage and protection from health emergencies (WHA 76.2).  WHO is dedicated to assisting countries to strengthen their emergency and critical care systems to ensure quality everyday clinical care and robust responses during times of crisis. Through collaborative efforts and partnerships, WHO advocates for the integration of emergency and critical care into national healthcare agendas, emphasizing the importance of building national capacities to enhance clinical service readiness, preparedness and resilience. This includes working closely with partner agencies within the UN system to ensure that emergency and critical care are appropriately represented in UHC packages and planning and disaster readiness and response.  

WHO’s work plan on emergency and critical care encompasses various facets, including advocacy, policy and planning, assessment at system level and health facility level, clinical learning programmes, clinical process tools and improvement of clinical care. Through ongoing advocacy and partnerships, WHO strives to ensure that emergency and critical care remain at the forefront of global health discussions and policies and are emphasized within national plans for service delivery implementation.