Responding to a steady increase in utilization of emergency departments (ED), a new law requires the 17 regional Associations of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KV) to provide a 24/7 telephone triage for the 72 million patients with statutory insurance in Germany as of 1 January 2020. Adaptation of the Swiss Medical Assessment System (SMASS) telephone triage system for application in Germany is under way by the Central Research Institute of Ambulatory Health Care in Germany (Zi) in collaboration with Health Care Quality Systems GmbH (HCQS). The software-assisted medical first assessment system for application in Germany will be named Structured Medical Assessment in Germany (SmED). It will be introduced in 2019 in the medical call central under the number 116117. It is designed to navigate patients with urgent medical needs directly to emergency facilities. Patients with non-urgent needs will be redirected to regular ambulatory care, receive support to schedule visits or will be referred to a telemedical consultation. The KVs are also legally required to set up primary care walk-in clinics in colocation with EDs and in cooperation with the respective hospitals for non-urgent patients presenting directly to the EDs. A modified version of SmED will also be provided to these ED sites with walk-in clinics to help assign patients to the adequate level of care. The implementation of SmED will be evaluated in a 3-year project supported by a grant from the Federal Joint Committee (GBA). The development of SmED will be carried out with the inclusion of representatives of the Marburg Association, the German Society of Interdisciplinary Emergency and Acute Medicine (DGINA) and the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI). A technical integration with the call number 112 is in progress.