Abstract
BACKGROUND: Societal changes (in expectations), efficiency efforts in the health systems and, in some cases, a high need for individual counselling due to low health literacy are difficult to align. Triage hotlines that refer callers to best points of care (POC) are possible solutions. The aim of this study was to analyze the potentials of the Austrian triage hotline 1450 in order to recognize patterns and suggest improvements. METHODS: Data from 01.01.-31.12.2019 from two urban areas of Lower Austria with their top five system diagnoses and five most frequent best POC per city were retrospectively analysed and compared. RESULTS: The five most common reasons for calling the hotline differed by city, resulting in six in the total sample (n=4376): vomiting (4,8%), back pain (3,0%), dizziness/vertigo (2,5%), abdominal pain (2,4%), chest pain (1,5%) and headache (1,4%). In absolute terms, the best POC was ambulance service with 38,7% (ambulance transport and emergency mission). In addition to the recommendation to visit an emergency department (18,5%), this resulted in a high proportion (57,2%) of patients being referred to ambulance service and hospitals. The best POC allocations in both cities (City A 89,8%/City B 92,0%) covered the available care points in urban areas to a large extent. CONCLUSION: In terms of the type of illness complaints, a more comprehensive referral to the primary care seems possible (headache, back pain, abdominal pain). Since the five most frequent reasons for calling only add up to 15,6% (n=682) of all documented counselling calls of the total sample, further investigations are necessary, taking into consideration the degree of urgency and the time the calls were made.