Community paramedicine provides patient-centered mobile resources as an extension of primary care in the out-of-hospital environment. It integrates medical resources, as well as community resources to create an innovative, and efficient healthcare delivery system to underserved patient populations.
Among others, one major goal of Community Integrated Healthcare is to keep patients home while bringing select services of the healthcare system to them, as ordered by their primary care provider, with the hopes of reducing hospital readmissions.
What is Community Integrated Healthcare?
Community Integrated Healthcare (CIH) is a new and evolving model of healthcare that utilizes Paramedics, Advanced Emergency Medical Technicians (AEMT’s), and Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT’s) as an extension of primary care. It is a healthcare delivery platform intended to serve a wide range of underserved patients in the out-of-hospital setting by providing patient-centered, team-based care using mobile resources.
CIH was designed to reduce healthcare demands and costs nationwide. Health Needs Assessments show a variety of gaps in healthcare for individuals that are in need of additional home based or mobile healthcare but are not in need of hospitalization or a long-term care facility. This also includes services that are difficult to obtain in our patient care service area, or patients that don’t qualify for traditional home healthcare services or are not bed bound.
Services Provided
- Chronic Illness Management
- Virtual Facilitated Exams
- Wound Care
- Infusions
- Injections
- Immunizations/Vaccinations
- COVID/Infectious Disease Monitoring
- Patient Education
- Home Safety Assessments
- IV Catheter Change
- Lab Draws/POC Testing
- Postpartum Visits
- Patient Needs Review & Navigation
- Medication Reconciliation
- Hospital Discharge Follow-up Visits
- Follow-up visits with unassigned patients from the ED needing prompt follow-up while they establish primary care.
How it works
Community Paramedicine (CP) is unique in that we work directly with each healthcare provider to extend their care to the patient’s home. A patient must be referred via email or the Montana CONNECT system for the patient to be considered for our services. We ask that the patient have a barrier to access care such as limited mobility, severe illness or injury, no reasonable transportation, time sensitivity, bedbound/homebound or severely immunocompromised.
After a patient referral has been accepted into our program, we will ensure all paperwork has been obtained and the case will be reviewed by a CP. The CP will make every effort to contact the patient and/or their proxy, within 48 hours to schedule a home visit.
Our initial visit, or Intake Assessment, involves an intensive assessment of the patient including vital signs, skin integrity, depression screening, medication reconciliation, patient history, goals and home safety assessment. Based on the outcome of the Intake Assessment and recommendation of the healthcare provider, we will establish a schedule of CP visits to help them improve and maintain their health, reduce hospital readmissions and unnecessary ER/ambulance trips.
Throughout this process, we will maintain regular contact with their provider to keep them updated on the patient’s condition and any changes that occur. By working together as a team and integrating our services, we can help the patient remain as healthy and independent as possible.
Contact us
If you feel that you have a patient that would benefit from Community Paramedicine services, please contact us for more information at (406) 441-5142 or email requests to:
CommunityParamedicine@sphealth.org