ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Disaster and Emergency Medicine
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1515635
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the emergency transportation of older patients: a population-based descriptive study in Osaka Prefecture, Japan
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Social and Environmental Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- 2Osaka University, Suita, Japan
- 3Department of Traumatology and Acute Critical Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan
- 4Osaka Prefectural Government, Osaka, Japan
- 5Rinku General Medical Center, Izumisano City, Japan
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Background: This study aimed to assess the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on emergency medical services for older patients who were transported to hospitals by ambulance. Methods: This descriptive retrospective study was conducted between January 2019 and December 2022, using the Osaka Emergency Information Research Intelligent Operation Network system. All patients aged ≥65 years who were transported by ambulance to hospitals in Osaka Prefecture for acute diseases were included. The outcomes were the number of older patients transported by ambulance, the number of difficulties obtaining patient acceptance at hospitals, and the number of deaths following hospitalization. We calculated the incidence rate ratio (IRR) and its associated 95% confidence interval (CI) for each year of the study period (2020, 2021, and 2022) using Poisson regression, with 2019 as the control year. Results: Compared to 2019, the numbers of older patients transported for acute disease were 186,218 (IRR, 0.92; 95% CI: 0.92–0.93) in 2020, 186,955 (0.93, 0.92–0.93) in 2021, and 214,048 (1.06, 1.05–1.07) in 2022. Difficulty obtaining patient acceptance increased
Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, death, Emergency transportation, Incidence, older patients
Received: 23 Oct 2024; Accepted: 04 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tanaka, Katayama, Kitamura, Domi, Oda and Matsuoka. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yusuke Katayama, Osaka University, Suita, Japan
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