ABSTRACT
Objective
Ambulance services are increasingly relied upon to provide a vital emergency point-of-care health service to adults who fall while living in Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs). This study examined patterns of ambulance attendance to falls-related cases among people aged 65 years and over living in RACFs.
Methods
We conducted an exploratory, descriptive, retrospective case series study of Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) response data within a regional area of Queensland, Australia between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2023. We analysed demographic data, triage category and patterns of QAS attendance.
Results
There were 6663 QAS falls-related attendances during the study period for 3545 unique patients. Attendances increased significantly for the 3 years from 2021 (n = 1916) to 2023 (n = 2528), χ
2(df = 2) = 84.35, p < 0.001. Forty-three per cent of residents experienced two or more fall-related events, and 88% of attendances resulted in transport to hospital. Attendance numbers were similar across the days of the week. There were significant differences in when calls were received during the 24 h for all years combined (χ
2(df = 23) = 489.62, p < 0.001) and for 2021 (χ
2(df = 23) = 182.15, p < 0.001), 2022 (χ
2(df = 23) = 154.04, p < 0.001) and 2023 (χ
2(df = 23) = 195.22, p < 0.001).
Conclusions
The findings of this study identified an urgent need to address health system optimisation and resource allocation to provide timely and appropriate services to people living in RACFs. Future studies could provide further evidence about the increasing demands on ambulance resources and strategies to improve high-quality, person-centred care.