Emergency Lower Austria reported on Thursday about almost 1.9 million calls and contacts in the year 2024. The flood disaster last September was significant and challenging. With the help of modern technology, a contribution to a future-proof healthcare system is to be made, with a focus not least on patient management, as was the tone of a press conference in St. Pölten.

Emergency Lower Austria: 1.9 Million Calls and Contacts

According to the current SPÖ state party leader and state councilor Sven Hergovich, who is also responsible for health in the state government, the contact numbers have recently approached the level before the Corona pandemic after the peak in 2021. Last year, there were exactly 1,892,918. "That's four per minute, 24 hours a day," calculated Hergovich. Ten percent of these are on average time-critical. In general, there is an increasingly strong shift from calls to online reports.

FPÖ state councilor Christoph Luisser spoke of a "new record" in health consultations. For the first time, the 90,000 mark was exceeded, with 90,287 cases recorded. In the area of Acute Community Nurse, the number of deployments increased from 8,764 to 12,616. According to Luisser, 4,643 of all interventions led to hospitalizations. "This means that early and targeted initial care helps reduce hospital stays and relieve our healthcare system."

"EmergencyEye" New on Board

A kind of game changer was the "EmergencyEye" implemented last year. The software allows the emergency call center to access callers' phones and control functions such as location or video. Luisser: "This way, emergency services can better assess situations in real-time and respond more quickly and efficiently."

Christian Fohringer, managing director of Emergency Call Lower Austria, also emphasized the importance of new technologies. In the state, formal death certification is now also supported by telemedicine. The main area of application is nursing homes; outside of these, professional staff must be present and follow a specific protocol. The innovation has been applied more than 60 times so far. The service relieves "emotional pressure" from caregivers and relatives, Fohringer stressed.

Emergency Call Lower Austria Sees Itself as a "Door Opener"

Josef Schmoll, also managing director of Emergency Call Lower Austria, described the control center as a "door opener" for patients and a network of help from experts on the phone. This also plays a role in patient management. By 2024, up to 100 ambulance transports per day had been reduced, and patient satisfaction had increased.

During the flooding in the state last September, Emergency Call Lower Austria was primarily "coordinating." Rescue and care services were sometimes unable to reach patients, and the control center acted as a "central hub" for passing on information and also during helicopter operations. The acute team, which was alerted a total of 1,700 times last year, was also supportive during and after the flood.

(APA/Red)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.