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. 2024 Jan 23;10(3):e24839.
doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e24839. eCollection 2024 Feb 15.

Analyzing emergency call volume, call durations, and unanswered calls during the first two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to 2019: An observational study of routine data from seven bavarian dispatch centres

Florian Dax  1 , Moritz Waibel  1 , Katharina Kneißl  1 , Stephan Prückner  1 , Marc Lazarovici  1 , Florian Hoffmann  2 , Kathrin Hegenberg  1
Affiliations

Analyzing emergency call volume, call durations, and unanswered calls during the first two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to 2019: An observational study of routine data from seven bavarian dispatch centres

Florian Dax et al. Heliyon. .

Abstract

Background: The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and the corresponding implementation of measures such as stay-at-home orders and curfews had a major impact on health systems, including emergency medical services. This study examined the effect of the pandemic on call volumes, duration of calls and unanswered calls to the emergency number 112.

Method: For this retrospective, descriptive study, 986,650 calls to seven emergency dispatch centres in Bavaria between January 01, 2019 and May 31, 2021 were analysed. The absolute number of calls and calls per 100,000 inhabitants as well as the number of unanswered calls are reported. The Mann‒Whitney U test was used to compare mean call durations between 2019 and 2020/2021 during several periods.

Results: Call volume declined during the pandemic, especially during periods with strict lockdown restrictions. The largest decline (-12.9 %) occurred during the first lockdown. The largest reduction in the number of emergency calls overall (-25.3 %) occurred on weekends during the second lockdown. Emergency call duration increased, with the largest increase (+13 s) occurring during the "light" lockdown. The number of unanswered calls remained at a similar level as before the pandemic.

Conclusion: This study showed that the studied Bavarian dispatch centres experienced lower call volumes and longer call durations during the first two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic (up to May 2021). Longer call durations could be the result of additional questions to identify potentially infectious patients. The fact that the number of unanswered calls hardly changed may indicate that the dispatch centres were not overwhelmed during the study period.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; Call volume; Emergency call; Integrated Dispatch Centre.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:Florian Dax reports a relationship with Bavarian Red Cross that includes: employment. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Median number of cases reported in the previous seven days per 100.000 population (incidence), number of calls, unanswered calls and median call duration to the medical emergency number 112.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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