Temporal trends in cardiovascular demand in EMS: Weekday versus weekend differences.

Area of Science:

• Emergency medicine
• Cardiovascular epidemiology
• Public health analytics

Background:

• Diagnosed cardiovascular disease (CVD) exhibits known temporal patterns, including peak demand in the late morning and higher incidence on Mondays and during winter.
• Understanding these patterns is crucial for optimizing emergency medical services (EMS) resource allocation and patient care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze temporal patterns of presumptive cardiovascular disease cases assessed by EMS.
• To characterize the distribution of these cases by day of the week and time of day.

Main Methods:

• Secondary analysis of Ambulance Victoria data (2008-2011) for metropolitan Melbourne.
• Inclusion of 182,983 presumptive cardiovascular disease cases, representing 15.2% of total demand.
• Utilized Poisson regression for case counts and trigonometric regression for temporal distribution analysis.

Main Results:

• Peak case numbers for most cardiovascular conditions occurred between 09:00 and 11:00, except for acute pulmonary edema (peak at 06:00).
• Distinct time-of-day distribution patterns were observed, independent of season.
• Weekend demand was lower than Mondays, with significant variations in distribution throughout the 24-hour period (e.g., fewer cases at 09:00, more at 01:00 on weekends).

Conclusions:

• Analyzing presumptive cardiovascular disease demand patterns, beyond simple counts, enhances understanding of EMS needs.
• While Mondays may have higher overall cardiovascular case numbers, weekend demand exhibits different temporal distributions.
• This knowledge is vital for informed EMS planning, including paramedic staffing and resource allocation.