HOW TO ACT IN EMERGENCY SITUATIONS IN A PRIMARY CARE UNIT?

Introduction: Emergency situations are uncommon in primary care practice. The increase of visits from patients to primary units in Portugal due to current crisis associated with the long waiting period in hospital emergencies raises the importance of knowing how to act in these situations. Methods: We propose 3 algorithms based on European Resuscitation Guidelines that can help us being more systematic and decreasing the errors in these life-threatening events. The algorithms are adapted to Primary Care Unit´s medication and experience´s level of health professionals. So we propose a algorithm of coronary syndrome, a algorithm of anaphylaxis and a algorithm of basic life support in cardiac rest with automated external defibrillators (AEDs). Results/Conclusion: We think that our experience using these algorithms could increase the chance of survival and at same time the level of confidant of patients in their Primary Care Unit.