Journal article
Ambulance Responses to Falls Incidents in Queensland Residential Aged Care Facilities: Implications for Policy and Practice
Australasian Journal on Ageing, Vol.45(3), pp.1-9
2026
PMCID: PMC13392976
PMID: 42489144
Appears in UniSC Supported Open Access Outputs
Abstract
Objective
Ambulance services are increasingly relied upon to provide a vital emergency point-of-care health service to adults who fall while living in Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs). This study examined patterns of ambulance attendance to falls-related cases among people aged 65 years and over living in RACFs.
Methods
We conducted an exploratory, descriptive, retrospective case series study of Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) response data within a regional area of Queensland, Australia between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2023. We analysed demographic data, triage category and patterns of QAS attendance.
Results
There were 6663 QAS falls-related attendances during the study period for 3545 unique patients. Attendances increased significantly for the 3 years from 2021 (n = 1916) to 2023 (n = 2528), χ2(df = 2) = 84.35, p < 0.001. Forty-three per cent of residents experienced two or more fall-related events, and 88% of attendances resulted in transport to hospital. Attendance numbers were similar across the days of the week. There were significant differences in when calls were received during the 24 h for all years combined (χ2(df = 23) = 489.62, p < 0.001) and for 2021 (χ2(df = 23) = 182.15, p < 0.001), 2022 (χ2(df = 23) = 154.04, p < 0.001) and 2023 (χ2(df = 23) = 195.22, p < 0.001).
Conclusions
The findings of this study identified an urgent need to address health system optimisation and resource allocation to provide timely and appropriate services to people living in RACFs. Future studies could provide further evidence about the increasing demands on ambulance resources and strategies to improve high-quality, person-centred care.
Details
- Title
- Ambulance Responses to Falls Incidents in Queensland Residential Aged Care Facilities: Implications for Policy and Practice
- Authors
- Alexis Hughes (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine CoastFlorin Oprescu - University of the Sunshine CoastPrudence Millear - University of the Sunshine CoastWendy Kinton - University of the Sunshine CoastKerrianne Watt - James Cook University
- Publication details
- Australasian Journal on Ageing, Vol.45(3), pp.1-9
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
- Date published
- 2026
- DOI
- 10.1111/ajag.70209
- ISSN
- 1741-6612
- PMID
- 42489144; PMC13392976
- Copyright note
- © 2026 The Author(s). Australasian Journal on Ageing published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of AJA Inc. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
- Data Availability
- The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.
- Organisation Unit
- Healthy Ageing Research Cluster; School of Health; School of Health and Sport Sciences - Legacy; Engage Research Lab; School of Health - Psychology; School of Health and Behavioural Sciences - Legacy; School of Health - Public Health
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991246958402621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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