Assessment of emergency patients with low urgency who were triaged by telephone-nurses and were transported to the hospital by ambulances

Abstract

Background: It is one factor of ambulance call that patients cannot judge themselves whether they should see a hospital. However, it has not been revealed how many cases of ambulance dispatch are present despite of judgement as “low  urgency” by telephone consultation.
Methods: We enrolled the patients who were judged as “low  urgency” and transported to hospital by ambulance from 2013 to 2015 in this study. We calculated the number of ambulance dispatch with low urgency per 1,000 judgement cases every 5 years old and assessed the trend by age group with Joinpoint analysis.
Results: There were 185 ambulance dispatch with low urgency and 23 cases in the 0-4 years old group. On the other hand, Joinpoint analysis showed the large increase since the age of 35-39.
Discussion: Especially in elderly people, they tended to request ambulance despite of judgement as “low  urgency”, it is necessary to establish an access method that can used for 24 hours instead of ambulance.