Description: Objective Demand for ambulances is growing. Nevertheless, knowledge is limited regarding diagnoses and outcomes in patients receiving emergency ambulances. This study aims to examine time trends in diagnoses and mortality among patients transported with emergency ambulance to hospital. Design Population-based cohort study with linkage of Danish national registries. Setting The North Denmark Region in 2007–2014. Participants Cohort of 148 757 patients transported to hospital by ambulance after calling emergency services. Main outcome measures The number of emergency ambulance service patients, distribution of their age, sex, hospital diagnoses, comorbidity, and 1-day and 30-day mortality were assessed by calendar year. Poisson regression with robust variance estimation was used to estimate both age-and sex-adjusted relative risk of death and prevalence ratios for Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) to allow comparison by year, with 2007 as reference year. Results The annual number of emergency ambulance service patients increased from 24.3 in 2007 to 40.2 in 2014 per 1000 inhabitants. The proportions of women increased from 43.1% to 46.4% and of patients aged 60+ years from 39.9% to 48.6%, respectively. The proportion of injuries gradually declined, non-specific diagnoses increased, especially the last year. Proportion of patients with high comorbidity (CCI≥3) increased from 6.4% in 2007 to 9.4% in 2014, corresponding to an age- and sex-adjusted prevalence ratio of 1.27 (95% CI 1.16 to 1.39). The 1-day and 30 day mortality decreased from 2.40% to 1.21% and from 5.01% to 4.36%, respectively, from 2007 to 2014, corresponding to age-adjusted and sex-adjusted relative risk of 0.43 (95% CI 0.37 to 0.50) and 0.72 (95% CI 0.66 to 0.79), respectively. Conclusion During the 8-year period, the incidence of emergency ambulance service patients, the proportion of women, elderly, and non-specific diagnoses increased. The level of comorbidity increased substantially, whereas the 1-day and 30-day mortality decreased.

Description: Objective Knowledge about patients after calling for an ambulance is limited to subgroups, such as patients with cardiac arrest, myocardial infarction, trauma and stroke, while population-based studies including all diagnoses are few. We examined the diagnostic pattern and mortality among all patients brought to hospital by ambulance after emergency calls. Design Registry-based cohort study. Setting and participants We included patients brought to hospital in an ambulance dispatched after emergency calls during 2007–2014 in the North Denmark Region (580 000 inhabitants). We reported hospital diagnosis according to the chapters of the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition (ICD-10), and studied death on days 1 and 30 after the call. Cohort characteristics and diagnoses were described, and the Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate mortality and 95% CIs. Results In total, 148 757 patients were included, mean age 52.9 (SD 24.3) years. The most frequent ICD-10 diagnosis chapters were: ‘injury and poisoning’ (30.0%), and the 2 non-specific diagnosis chapters: ‘symptoms and abnormal findings, not elsewhere classified’ (17.5%) and ‘factors influencing health status and contact with health services’ (14.1%), followed by ‘diseases of the circulatory system’ (10.6%) and ‘diseases of the respiratory system’ (6.7%). The overall 1-day mortality was 1.8% (CI 1.7% to 1.8%) and 30-day mortality 4.7% (CI 4.6% to 4.8%). ‘Diseases of the circulatory system’ had the highest 1-day mortality of 7.7% (CI 7.3% to 8.1%) accounting for 1209 deaths. After 30 days, the highest number of deaths were among circulatory diseases (2313), respiratory diseases (1148), ‘symptoms and abnormal findings, not elsewhere classified’ (1119) and ‘injury and poisoning’ (741), and 30 days mortality in percentage was 14.7%, 11.6%, 4.3% and 1.7%, respectively. Conclusions Patients' diagnoses from hospital stay after calling 1-1-2 in this population-based study were distributed across all ICD-10 chapters. Mortality varied widely between diagnostic groups. Non-specific diagnoses accounted for one-third of the patients and contributed to mortality in terms of total number of deaths.