It鈥檚 being called the house call of the future: ambulance crews who rush when you call 9-1-1, but instead of taking you to the emergency room, they treat you at home.
Community paramedicine, as it鈥檚 called, is a growing trend across the country. It鈥檚 aim is to bring down hospital costs, but there are concerns about who鈥檚 going to end up paying for the service.
David Kimbrell, the fire chief in Hall County, Georgia, and Scot Phelps, a former paramedic and a professor of disaster science, speak with Robin Young.
Interview Highlights
David Kimbrell on the advantages of community paramedicine
鈥淭hey鈥檙e able to do blood withdrawals and do some analytical tests on the scene. They have a centrifuge. They can spin down blood to do various blood tests on the scene. None of those things are done by paramedics on the scene. So if you think about healthcare, we鈥檙e basically going back to the old house calls by the doctor.鈥�
David Kimbrell on funding the new service
鈥淲e were seeing more and more people calling 911 and our medics were treating them on the scene, and then we were not getting reimbursed for that because a paramedic has to transport in order to be reimbursed by insurance and Medicare and Medicaid. So we were able to utilize a nurse practitioner. So the nurse practitioner and the paramedic teams up as the mobile care team. Then, if they go out and treat a patient, it is reimbursable through the nurse practitioner鈥檚 license.鈥�
Scot Phelps on a previous attempt at community paramedicine
鈥淲e tried this in 1995 in Red River, New Mexico and what we found after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars was that it didn鈥檛 actually save any money or improve any care. So they abandoned it and now eight years later its the topic du jour.鈥�
Scot Phelps on paramedics鈥� responses to the service
鈥淚 don鈥檛 think paramedics are really anxious about being replaced because all the data shows that all the ambulance calls across the country, and in fact, across the world, are increasing increasing at about 5 percent a year. The problem is that very few communities have sufficient numbers of paramedics. There is extraordinarily high turnover. That was one of the key conclusions of the 1995 Red River project was that with the high turnover the training costs add up kind of quickly.鈥�
Guests
- David Kimbrell, fire chief and director of emergency management in Hall County, Georgia.
- , former paramedic and professor of disaster science at the Emergency Management Academy. He tweets .
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