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Abstract
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OBJECTIVE: Emergency medical dispatchers (EMDs) ensure that pre-hospital resources are provided for potential hospital admissions. This analysis aimed to describe the prevalence and time trends of all requests to emergency medical services (EMSs) in Thailand.
Methods: This cross-sectional analytical study was conducted using a data set of 8,182,724 emergency calls to emergency medical dispatch centers throughout Thailand, collected from the EMS Registry from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2020.
Results: Out of the 8,116,969 eligible emergency calls, most regional emergency calls came from the Northeast region (45.5%), while the lowest number of calls came from the Western region (4.6%). The provinces with the highest and lowest numbers of emergency calls were Khon Kaen (6.15%) and Mae Hong Son (0.24%), respectively. The most frequent emergency calls were related to traffic accidents (25.6%), followed by unknown problems (20.4%), abdominal pain (10.6%), fall injury (8%), and dyspnea (7.8%). The total number of calls peaked at rainy season (42.2%), Fridays (14.7%), and during the afternoon (36.5%). Furthermore, 87% of calls were assigned the highest emergency priority levels (EPLs I and II). EPL I cases included cardiac arrest (93.9%), near-drowning (66.9%), unconsciousness (53.9%), stroke (52.7%), and diabetic problems (51.3%). Calls for cardiac arrest peaked in the morning (7:00 to 9:00) and during the evening (16:00 to 19:00), mainly occurring on Monday, in the winter season, and from October to December.
Conclusion: The findings of this study provide fundamental information for the develop- ment of strategic treatment planning and allocation of emergency resources in Thailand.
Keywords: Emergency medical services, Emergency medical dispatch, Population surveil- lance, Thailand
Language: en |