Community Paramedicine

The UVA Health Community Paramedicine (CP) program, provided through the Population Health Department, represents an expanded role for community paramedics to interact with patients outside the traditional healthcare system. The program aims to improve patients' health outcomes by connecting them with resources and education. Patient populations are identified using a data-driven approach to focus on individuals most likely to benefit from additional support for outpatient healthcare plan success.

What Is Community Paramedicine?

Community paramedicine (CP) uses prehospital clinicians to improve healthcare outcomes. By visiting patients in non-emergency situations to help identify and mitigate challenges, patients are able to live healthier lives and spend less time in the emergency department.

How Are Patients Identified?

When patients:

• Regularly use emergency department services
• Are readmitted to the hospital

• Call 911 often

Then they are a potential candidate for community paramedicine. Usually, patients are identified as part of the discharge process. Paramedic teams deploy to a patient's residence or location to intervene, provide care, if appropriate, and prevent the next such event, including a non-emergent ED visit, hospital admission, or readmission.

What Are the Goals of the Community Paramedicine Program?

The goals of the CP program are to:

• Identify challenges in healthcare strategies through visits with patients
• Facilitate the successful completion of existing healthcare plans
• Identify novel and unrecognized opportunities for health improvements

The CP program is not designed to duplicate existing community resources. Instead, the goal is to develop expertise in interacting with and assessing patients and helping them connect with the right care resources and services to achieve their healthcare goals.

As Part of Population Health

The CP program includes enrollment in other Population Health programs to connect patients with PCPs and/or clinical specialists, schedule appointments, pharmacy consults, and medication reviews, complete the PHQ and SDOH survey tools with associated resources, access behavioral health care sessions, health literacy education, and more, depending on patient needs.