Does the Use of Prehospital Emergency Care Units in Inter-Hospital Transfers Affect Regional Prehospital Emergency Care Readiness?—A Finnish Pilot Study

Inter-hospital transfers remain a significant part of emergency care service missions, even though efforts have been made to change this. We examined the use of prehospital emergency care units in inter-hospital patient transfers in one wellbeing services county in Finland. We evaluated the potential strain they place on regional prehospital emergency care readiness, and examined how these transfers arise between different regions, populations, and healthcare centers. This was a register-based pilot study using prehospital emergency care inter-hospital transfer mission statistics within the wellbeing services county of Pirkanmaa, Finland during 2020 and 2021. The data were extracted from the emergency care service’s field management program. A descriptive analysis of the data was performed, in which interdependencies between several variables were examined. During the two years, there were 5812 prehospital emergency care inter-hospital transfer missions dispatched to prehospital emergency care units. The number of prehospital emergency care inter-hospital transfer missions was especially notable in rural regions, where there were also fewer units available. Based on the results, the criteria for prehospital emergency care use in inter-hospital transfers require clarification, since there is an observable strain caused by these transfers on regional emergency care readiness. The results of this pilot study encourage further studies on the use of prehospital emergency care units in inter-hospital patient transfers.