Recommendations of the 2016 S3 guideline on polytrauma/severe injuries for prehospital care. A practice-oriented presentation

In 2011 the first interdisciplinary S3 guideline for the management of patients with serious injuries/trauma was published. After intensive revision and in consensus with 20 different medical societies, the updated version of the guideline was published in 2016. Divided into the three different sections prehospital care, emergency room management, and first operative phase, many recommendations and explanations were updated, mostly in the prehospital care and emergency room management sections. The prehospital care section is of special interest for all members of emergency medical services (e.g., emergency physician, paramedics, emergency technicians). The present work summarizes changes and innovations in prehospital care of the current guideline in a practice-oriented manner using the ABCDE scheme.