The Emergency Department was established in its present form in 2012. The main task of the department is to organise treatment of all acute patients in a geographical area with 300,000 inhabitants and be the receiving trauma centre for 1.2 million people.The Emergency Department will move into new facilities in 2016 where the majority of the acute functions at Aarhus University Hospital will be gathered under one roof.

The Emergency Department collaborates with most emergency departments in Denmark on the organisation of triage, education in emergency medicine, as well as research and development within the field of emergency medicine. This is achieved through exchanging experiences with cooperation partners abroad, participation in international courses and clinical stays for doctors and medical students at emergency departments abroad.

The department has recently established a research unit in emergency medicine based on network groups with staff from the department but also outside the department. The research unit investigates several areas, amongst which is post cardiac arrest with special focus on therapeutic hypothermia and experimental animal studies. One network group works with early tracing of critical illness (sepsis) while other groups investigate epidemiological and organisational aspects in emergency medicine and perform research within the pre-hospital area. Staff with medium-cycle higher education backgrounds such as nurses and therapists are also very active in different research areas. Internationally, the department collaborates with a department of emergency medicine in Boston and participates in a newly established European research group within the pre-hospital area.