Could the community social alarm system serve also as a primary health care service?

The history of calls to the first community social alarm centre in Ljubljana and the service subscribers records were analysed with the aim of finding out how the service helps in emergencies when calls related to health problems are received. The network, being a pilot project in Slovenia, was established in 1992 primarily to offer social services to elderly and disabled people living in their own home environments. The article highlights the role of the network in solving the medical problems of the users of the system. Among the 18,500 calls received in four years at the centre, 395 (2.1%) of them were health-related. An additional 24 emergency calls (0.2%) of them were received from non-subscribers to the centre using an "ordinary" telephone. Although the absolute number of health-related calls is low, the network plays an important role in preventive primary health care aimed at the observed population groups. The network meets most of the specific technical and organisational requirements for a community health care emergency call system. The described system suitability and low percentage of calls related to health problems suggest that there is no need for two parallel call systems: one to cover social and the other one to fulfil emergency calls for medical help to elderly and disabled at their homes. From a telematic point of view it is important that a telematic device--an emergency call unit--has entered an elderly or disabled person's home and been accepted. The unit could be a basic communication device for different telemedical applications.