Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Nov 21;10(11):2331.
doi: 10.3390/healthcare10112331.

The Emergency Performance of the Hungarian Ambulance Service during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Klára Bíró  1 , Máté Sándor Deák  1   2 , György Pápai  3 , Attila Nagy  4 , Viktor Dombrádi  5 , Gábor Tamás Szabó  6 , Klára Boruzs  1 , Gábor Bányai  1 , Gábor Csató  3
Affiliations

The Emergency Performance of the Hungarian Ambulance Service during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Klára Bíró et al. Healthcare (Basel). .

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic had a considerable impact on the whole health sector, particularly on emergency services. Our aim was to examine the performance of the Hungarian National Ambulance Service during the first four waves of the pandemic. We defined the 2019 performance of the service as the baseline and compared it with the activity during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. The data contained deliveries related to acute myocardial infarction, hemorrhagic stroke, ischemic stroke, overall non-COVID-related ambulance deliveries, COVID screenings performed by the ambulance service, and COVID-related ambulance deliveries. The data were aggregated for each week of the investigated time period and stratified by gender and age. Compared with the pre-pandemic era, we found a significant increase in all three medical conditions and overall deliveries (p < 0.001 in all cases). As a result of the increased burden, it is important for emergency services to prepare for the next global epidemic and to improve organizational performance and rescue activities. The Hungarian example highlights that in a pandemic, it can be beneficial to organize the emergency care of a country or a larger region under a single provider with a single decision maker supported by business intelligence.

Keywords: COVID-19; Hungary; acute myocardial infarction; ambulance service; pandemic; stroke.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Gábor Csató (G.C.) and György Pápai (G.P.) are board members of the Hungarian National Ambulance Services. The other authors have no potential conflict of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Weekly average of (A) acute myocardial infarction, (B) stroke, and (C) overall non-COVID-related deliveries by the NAS between 2019 and 2021. The upper and lower 95% confidence intervals are calculated based on the predicted values. The R-squared values of the linear trends are shown in the upper-right corners, and the equations of the regression lines are shown in the upper-left corners.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Weekly moving average of (A) COVID-19 screenings and (B) COVID-19-related deliveries by the NAS between 2019 and 2021.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Riou M., Marcot C., Canuet M., Renaud-Picard B., Chatron E., Porzio M., Dégot T., Hirschi S., Metz-Favre C., Kassegne L., et al. Clinical Characteristics of and Outcomes for Patients with COVID-19 and Comorbid Lung Diseases Primarily Hospitalized in a Conventional Pulmonology Unit: A Retrospective Study. Respir. Med. Res. 2021;79:100801. doi: 10.1016/j.resmer.2020.100801. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Li Y., Zeng L., Li Z., Mao Q., Liu D., Zhang L., Zhang H., Xie Y., Liu G., Gan X., et al. Emergency Trauma Care during the Outbreak of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China. World J. Emerg. Surg. 2020;15:33. doi: 10.1186/s13017-020-00312-5. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wachira B.W., Mwai M. A Baseline Review of the Ability of Hospitals in Kenya to Provide Emergency and Critical Care Services for COVID-19 Patients. Afr. J. Emerg. Med. 2021;11:213–217. doi: 10.1016/j.afjem.2021.01.001. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Al-Wathinani A., Hertelendy A.J., Alhurishi S., Mobrad A., Alhazmi R., Altuwaijri M., Alanazi M., Alotaibi R., Goniewicz K. Increased Emergency Calls during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia: A National Retrospective Study. Healthcare. 2020;9:14. doi: 10.3390/healthcare9010014. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Prezant D.J., Lancet E.A., Zeig-Owens R., Lai P.H., Appel D., Webber M.P., Braun J., Hall C.B., Asaeda G., Kaufman B., et al. System Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on New York City’s Emergency Medical Services. J. Am. Coll Emerg. Physicians Open. 2020;1:1205–1213. doi: 10.1002/emp2.12301. - DOI - PMC - PubMed