The Role of Paramedics in Community Paramedicine Programs: (Review Artical)
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- Category: Vol. 87, December 2019
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The Role of Paramedics in Community Paramedicine Programs: (Review Artical)
Abstract
Background: Community paramedicine, a new approach to health services, is gaining popularity in several countries. It utilizes existing paramedic resources and offers personalized services like disease management, home assessments, and re-ferrals to community services. Aim of Study: The objective of this study is to categorize the various community paramedicine programs and analyze the corresponding training methods for each program. Methods: A comprehensive assessment of the MEDLINE, Embase, grey literature, and bibliographies was conducted us-ing a search approach that incorporated often used terms related to community paramedicine. All research that was published in the English language prior to January 22, 2018, was included. The process of screening and extraction was carried out in du-plicate by two separate reviewers. Results: Among the papers that had a research design that could be evaluated (40.6% of the total), the median MMAT score was 3 out of 4 criteria fulfilled, indicating a moderate level of quality. The programs primarily targeted two groups: frequent 911 callers (48.3%) and persons who were at danger of being admitted to the emergency room, readmitted, or hos-pitalized (41.4%). Additionally, 70.7% of the programs focused on providing preventive home visits. The most often offered services included home evaluation (29.5%), medication man-agement (39.7%), and referral and/or transport to community services (37.9%). Additionally, 77.6% of programs incorporat-ed interprofessional collaboration. 57% of programs described community paramedicine training as an expansion of regular paramedicine training that focuses on technical skills. The pres-ence of variation in the study characteristics hindered the ability to do a meta-analysis. Conclusion: Community paramedicine curricula and train-ing were varied and enabled community paramedics to tackle a wide range of population health and social concerns. The de-scription of the training was inadequate. Expanding the capabil-ity of additional programs to evaluate and document program and training results would facilitate the expansion of commu-
nity paramedicine and the establishment of structured training or education systems