Impact of COVID-19 on Emergency Medical Services Utilization and Severity in the U.S. Upper Midwest

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed nearly one million lives and has drastically changed how patients interact with the healthcare system. Emergency medical services (EMS) are essential for emergency response, disaster preparedness, and responding to everyday emergencies. We therefore examined differences in EMS utilization and call severity in 2020 (pandemic period) compared to trends from 2015-2019 (pre-pandemic period) in a large, multi-state advanced life support EMS agency serving the U.S. Upper Midwest. Specifically, we analyzed all 911 calls made to Mayo Clinic Ambulance, the sole advanced life support EMS provider serving a large area in Minnesota and Wisconsin, in 2020 compared to those made between 2015-2019. We compared the number of emergency calls made in 2020 to the number of calls expected based on trends from 2015-2019. We similarly compared caller demographics, call severity, and proportions of calls made for overdose/intoxication, behavioral health, and motor vehicle accidents. Subgroup analyses were performed for rural vs. urban areas. We identified 262,232 emergent EMS calls in the pre-pandemic period and 53,909 calls in the pandemic period, corresponding to a decrease of 28.7% in call volume during the pandemic period. Caller demographics shifted towards older patients (mean age 59.7 [SD, 23.0] vs. 59.1 [SD, 23.7] years; p<0.001) and to rural areas (20.4% vs. 20.0%; p=0.007). Call severity increased, with 95.3% of calls requiring transport (vs. 93.8%; p<0.001) and 1.9% resulting in death (vs. 1.6%; p<0.001). The proportion of calls for overdose/intoxication increased from 4.8% to 5.5% (p<0.001), while the proportion of calls for motor vehicle collisions decreased from 3.9% to 3.0% (p<0.001). All changes were more pronounced in urban areas. These findings underscore the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic impacted healthcare utilization, particularly in urban areas, and suggest that patients may have delayed calling EMS with potential implications on disease severity and risk of death.