Publication date: Jan 31, 2025
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of ambulance calls increased sharply, and ambulances could not be dispatched due to unavailability, especially in rural areas. This study assessed the integration of traditional emergency care systems in rural areas with online medical services from urban areas. In this retrospective observational cohort study, patients recovering from mild COVID-19 at home who called an ambulance (November 2022 to January 2023) in Asahikawa, Japan were included. When an emergency call was received, the fire department control center initiated an online medical consultation to ascertain the necessity of ambulance transport while conventionally dispatching an ambulance. We compared chief complaints and patient characteristics between those who were transferred to hospitals and those who were not transferred, considering the time from the beginning of the 1-1-9 call to the start of the online service, and the duration of the online consultation for each group. The statistical significance of the differences between groups was analyzed by the Mann-Whitney U-test for continuous variables and the chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test for categorical variables with statistical significance set at p
| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Ambulances | ambulance dispatch |
| Japan | emergency department |
| Pandemic | out-of-hours service |
| Rural | public health center |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | emergency |
| disease | MESH | COVID-19 pandemic |