Skip to main content
Key Specialties
Cardiology Diabetology Endocrinology Gastroenterology Geriatrics and Gerontology Gynecology and Obstetrics Hematology Infectious Disease Internal Medicine Nephrology Neurology Oncology Pediatrics Respiratory Medicine Rheumatology Surgery
Congress Coverage
2024 ACC Congress 2023 ESMO Congress 2023 EASD Congress 2023 ERS Congress 2023 ESC Congress
Clinical Collections
Advances in Alzheimer’s

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

LIVE: Thursday 27th June 2024, 18:00-19:30 (CEST)
Join our expert panel to discover why you need to understand the drivers of non-adherence in your patients, and how you can optimize medication adherence in your clinics to drastically improve patient outcomes.
ADVANCED SEARCH
Log in
Top
BMC Emergency Medicine
Published in: BMC Emergency Medicine 1/2023

Open Access 01-12-2023 | COVID-19 | Research

Time indices of pre-hospital EMS missions before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study in Iran

Authors: Mohammadreza Sabbaghi, Mohammad Namazinia, Kheizaran Miri

Published in: BMC Emergency Medicine | Issue 1/2023

Login to get access

Abstract

Background

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in many changes in pre-hospital emergency medical services (EMS), including wearing full-body protective suits and well-fitted face masks, which can influence time indices in the course of service delivery. The present study aimed to compare the time indices of pre-hospital EMS missions before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Iran.

Methods

This descriptive cross-sectional study used census sampling to select 17,860 emergency calls that caused patient transfer to medical facilities from March 2018 to March 2021 and then examined the time indices of pre-hospital EMS missions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The data collection tool was a two-part checklist: patients' individual characteristics and pre-hospital EMS mission time indices. The data were further analyzed using the SPSS16 and independent samples t-test.

Results

Out of the patients transferred by the EMS, 11,773 cases (65.9%) were male and 6,087 (34.1%) were female. The most common reason for the emergency calls was accidents (28.0%). Moreover, response time (P < 0.001), on-scene time (P < 0.001), transfer time (P < 0.001), total run time (P < 0.001), and round trip time (P < 0.001) increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conclusions

We concluded that the EMS time indices elevated following the COVID-19 pandemic. Updating pre-hospital information management systems, ambulances and medical equipment, as well as holding training courses for pre-hospital EMS personnel could effectively enhance the time indices of pre-hospital EMS missions.
Literature
1.
Alazmy W, Samarkandi O, Williams B. The history of emergency medical services response to mass casualty incidents in disasters, Saudi Arabia. J Emerg Med Trauma Acute Care. 2020;2020(1):3.CrossRef
2.
Mehmood A, Rowther AA, Kobusingye O, Hyder AA. Assessment of pre-hospital emergency medical services in low-income settings using a health systems approach. Int J Emerg Med. 2018;11(1):1–10.CrossRef
3.
Froutan R, Khankeh HR, Fallahi M, Ahmadi F, Norouzi K. Resiliency Improvements in medical emergency staff in burn missions: a qualitative study in an Iranian context. Iran Red Crescent Med J. 2015;17(7).
4.
Bahadori M, Ghardashi F, Izadi AR, Ravangard R, Mirhashemi S, Hosseini SM. Pre-hospital emergency in Iran: a systematic review. Trauma Mon. 2016;21(2):e31382.CrossRef
5.
Asadi H, HabibiSoola A, Gheybati F, Davari M. Time indices of prehospital emergency services in Ardabil City, Iran, 2020. Health Emerg Disasters. 2021;6(3):161–8.CrossRef
6.
Bidari A, Abbasi S, Farsi D, Saeidi H, Mofidi M, Radmehr M, Rezaei M, Ashayeri N. Quality assessment of prehospital care service in patients transported to hazrat-e-rasoul akram hospital. 2007.
7.
Jaffe E, Sonkin R, Strugo R, Zerath E. Evolution of emergency medical calls during a pandemic–an emergency medical service during the COVID-19 outbreak. Am J Emerg Med. 2021;43:260–6.CrossRef
8.
Coughlin SS, Yiǧiter A, Xu H, Berman AE, Chen J. Early detection of change patterns in COVID-19 incidence and the implementation of public health policies: a multi-national study. Public Health Pract. 2021;2:100064.CrossRef
9.
Umakanthan S, Sahu P, Ranade AV, Bukelo MM, Rao JS, Abrahao-Machado LF, Dahal S, Kumar H, Dhananjaya K. Origin, transmission, diagnosis and management of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Postgrad Med J. 2020;96(1142):753–8.
10.
Purcell LN, Charles AG. An invited commentary on “World Health Organization declares global emergency: a review of the 2019 novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)": emergency or new reality? Int J Surg (London, England). 2020;76:111.CrossRef
11.
Umakanthan S, Bukelo MM, Gajula SS. The Commonwealth Caribbean COVID-19: regions resilient pathway during pandemic. Front Public Health. 2022;10:844333.CrossRef
12.
Umakanthan S, Senthil S, John S, Madhavan MK, Das J, Patil S, Rameshwaram R, Cintham A, Subramaniam V, Yogi M. The effect of statins on clinical outcome among hospitalized patients with COVID-19: a multi-centric cohort study. Front Pharmacol. 2022;13:2558.CrossRef
13.
Murphy DL, Barnard LM, Drucker CJ, Yang BY, Emert JM, Schwarcz L, Counts CR, Jacinto TY, McCoy AM, Morgan TA. Occupational exposures and programmatic response to COVID-19 pandemic: an emergency medical services experience. Emerg Med J. 2020;37(11):707–13.CrossRef
14.
Laukkanen L, Lahtinen S, Liisanantti J, Kaakinen T, Ehrola A, Raatiniemi L. Early impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and social restrictions on ambulance missions. Eur J Pub Health. 2021;31(5):1090–5.CrossRef
15.
Zeraatchi A, Rostami B, Rostami A. Time indices of emergency medical services; a cross-sectional study. Iran J Emerg Med. 2018;5(1):e8.
16.
Yadollahi S, Yadollahi S. Time indices of pre hospital emergency medical services: in Shahrekord county. Paramed Sci Military Health. 2018;13(3):47–57.
17.
Eskol JR, Zegers FD, Wittrock D, Lassen AT, Mikkelsen S. Increased ambulance on-scene times but unaffected response times during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Southern Denmark. BMC Emerg Med. 2022;22(1):1–6.CrossRef
18.
Satty T, Ramgopal S, Elmer J, Mosesso VN, Martin-Gill C. EMS responses and non-transports during the COVID-19 pandemic. Am J Emerg Med. 2021;42:1–8.CrossRef
19.
Lim SL, Shahidah N, Saffari SE, Ng QX, Ho AFW, Leong BS-H, Arulanandam S, Siddiqui FJ, Ong MEH. Impact of COVID-19 on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest in Singapore. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021;18(7):3646.CrossRef
20.
Saberian P, Conovaloff JL, Vahidi E, Hasani-Sharamin P, Kolivand P-H. How the COVID-19 epidemic affected prehospital emergency medical Services in Tehran, Iran. West J Emerg Med. 2020;21(6):110.CrossRef
21.
Velasco C, Wattai B, Buchle S, Richardson A, Padmanaban V, Morrison KJ, Reichwein R, Church E, Simon SD, Cockroft KM. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence, prehospital evaluation, and presentation of ischemic stroke at a Nonurban Comprehensive Stroke Center. Stroke Res Treat. 2021;2021:6624231.
22.
Vafaei SM, Manzari ZS, Heydari A, Froutan R, Farahani LA. Improving nursing care documentation in emergency department: A participatory action research study in Iran. Open Access Maced J Med Sci. 2018;6(8):1527.
23.
Umakanthan S, Bukelo MM, Bukelo MJ, Patil S, Subramaniam N, Sharma R. Social environmental predictors of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in India: a population-based survey. Vaccines. 2022;10(10):1749.CrossRef
24.
Sarboozi-Hoseinabadi T, Askari M, Miri K, Namazi Nia M. Depression, Anxiety, and Stress of Nurses' Family Members in Covid–19 Pandemic; a Case Study of Torbat-e Heydariyeh Hospitals. Iran J War Public Health. 2020;12(4):241–8.
25.
Tien H, Sawadsky B, Lewell M, Peddle M, Durham W. Critical care transport in the time of COVID-19. CJEM. 2020;22(S2):S84–8.CrossRef
26.
Jarvis S, Salottolo K, Berg GM, Carrick M, Caiafa R, Hamilton D, Banton K, Lieser M, Bar-Or D. Examining emergency medical services’ prehospital transport times for trauma patients during COVID-19. Am J Emerg Med. 2021;44:33–7.
27.
Yu J-H, Liu C-Y, Chen W-K, Yu S-H, Huang F-W, Yang M-T, Chen C-Y, Shih H-M. Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on emergency medical service response to out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in Taiwan: a retrospective observational study. Emerg Med J. 2021;38(9):679–84.CrossRef
28.
Ageta K, Naito H, Yorifuji T, Obara T, Nojima T, Yamada T, Tsukahara K, Yakushiji H, Nakao A. Delay in emergency medical service transportation responsiveness during the COVID-19 pandemic in a minimally affected region. Acta Med Okayama. 2020;74(6):513–20.
29.
Prezant DJ, Lancet EA, Zeig-Owens R, Lai PH, Appel D, Webber MP, Braun J, Hall CB, Asaeda G, Kaufman B. System impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on New York City’s emergency medical services. J Am Coll Emerg Physicians Open. 2020;1(6):1205–13.
Metadata
Title
Time indices of pre-hospital EMS missions before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study in Iran
Authors
Mohammadreza Sabbaghi
Mohammad Namazinia
Kheizaran Miri
Publication date
01-12-2023
Publisher
BioMed Central
Keyword
COVID-19
Published in
BMC Emergency Medicine / Issue 1/2023
Electronic ISSN: 1471-227X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12873-023-00780-3

Other articles of this Issue 1/2023

BMC Emergency Medicine 1/2023 Go to the issue

Research

E-scooter-related orthopedic injuries and the treatments applied: are these scooters a new means of transportation or a new source of trauma?

Research

Gender disparities in the mediating role of symptom knowledge level in reducing acute coronary syndrome (ACS) decision delay: Findings from a community-based study in China

Research

Anaemia in the first week may be associated with long-term mortality among critically ill patients: propensity score-based analyses

Research

Association between independent practice time and patient outcomes in the emergency department: a retrospective study of residents in three urban hospitals in Taiwan

Research

Effects of the establishment of trauma centres on the mortality rate among seriously injured patients: a propensity score matching retrospective study

Research

Changes in trauma-related emergency medical services during the COVID-19 lockdown in the Western Cape, South Africa