The UVA Health, Community Paramedicine (CP) program, provided through the Population Health Department, represents an expanded role for pre-hospital clinicians to interact with clients/patients outside of the traditional health care system. The overarching goal of the program is to improve health outcomes by connecting underserved populations with underutilized resources. Patient populations that may be at increased risk for failure of their outpatient health care plans, and could benefit from the CP program, will be identified through the discharge planning process for inpatients, emergency department discharge planning processes, frequent utilization of the emergency services system, and identification of members of vulnerable populations in communities that have historically faced barriers to successful health care outcomes.
The goals of the CP program are to identify challenges in health care strategies through visits with patients/clients in the community in order to facilitate the successful completion of existing health care plans, and to identify novel and unrecognized opportunities for health improvements by assisting patients in accessing community resources. The CP program is not designed to duplicate existing resources in the community, but rather to develop expertise in the interaction with, and assessment of, clients/patients, and to facilitate the ability of clients/patients to access appropriate resources and be successful in achieving their health care goals.
The CP program includes enrollment in the IHM program, which provides remote patient monitoring, video and photo support, connecting patients with PCPs and/or clinical specialists, scheduling appointments, deploying transportation, pharmacy consults and medication reviews, completing the PHQ and SDOH survey tools with associated resources to remove barriers to care, accessing behavioral health care sessions, health literacy education, and more, depending on patient needs.
