Research has demonstrated significant reductions in overall health care costs and improved outcomes for patients who receive community paramedical services
amid staffing shortages. A 65-year-old Montreal man died in May after reportedly waiting hours for an ambulance; he had told emergency services that he hit his head and was unable to get out of bed. In July, a 91-year-old woman, also in Montreal, died after hurting her leg and waiting seven hours for paramedics to arrive.
Mr. Woiden cites his city’s EPIC program – short for emergency paramedics in the community – as an example of how effective the approach can be, with data showing that patients treated by EPIC are half as likely to visit the hospital. In the month of May last year, when the city introduced a phone triage system specifically for EPIC called EPIC 9, only 37 per cent of calls resulted in a hospital visit.
Mr. Woiden notes that community paramedicine is not monolithic; there are different types of programs to service different needs. Some communities only have home visit and remote monitoring programs, for people with chronic conditions and patients in rural communities who may need regular checkups or prescription refills. Others primarily use community paramedics to write referrals for other medical professionals.
Mike Nolan, the director of emergency services and the chief paramedic for Ontario’s Renfrew County, says that can mainly be attributed to significant investment from the province. According to the Ontario’s Ministry of Health, the government has allocated as much as $252-million for paramedical services, primarily to serve seniors on wait lists for long-term care homes.
Over the past 10 years, research has demonstrated significant reductions in overall health care costs and improved outcomes for patients who receive community paramedical services. A randomized control trial conducted partly in Renfrew County and published in 2017 also found that self-reported quality-of-life scores of patients suffering from late-stage chronic illnesses were as much as 20-per-cent higher among people who had received community paramedical care.
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