REPEATED AMBULANCE USE BY PATIENTS WITH ACUTE ALCOHOL-INTOXICATION, SEIZURE DISORDER, AND RESPIRATORY ILLNESS

Three chronic conditions were examined-acute alcohol intoxication, sei zure disorder, and respiratory illness-to quantify the extent of repet itive emergency medical services (EMS) use in a defined population. Ur ban EMS system ambulance data from 1992 to 1994 were analyzed for the three designated conditions with respect to transports by condition an d individual patient. Analysis by chi(2) was used for comparing propor tions. Analysis of variance after square root transformation was used to evaluate differences among means. The total number of transports an alyzed was 15,541: 7,488 for acute alcohol intoxication, 4,670 for res piratory illness, and 3,383 for seizure disorder. These transports inv olved 8,692 patients who were transported at least once for one of the three designated conditions. The mean number of transports for alcoho l was 1.96 (95% confidence intervals [CI]: 1.92, 2.01), seizure 1.32 ( 95% CI: 1.27, 1.36), and respiratory 1.18 (95% CI: 1.15, 1.21). Of 369 patients transported five or more times during the study period, 260 (70.5%) were for alcohol, 56 (15.2%) for seizure, and 53 (14.4%) for r espiratory complaints. This group comprised only 4.3% of patients, but 28.4% of all transports. Acute alcohol intoxication resulted in more repetitive ambulance transports than either seizure disorder or respir atory illness. A small number of patients were responsible for a large number of transports. Focused intervention for patients with high amb ulance transport deserves further study. Copyright (C) 1998 by W.B. Sa unders Company.