Special paramedics to begin home visits

AHS PROGRAM ALREADY UNDERWAY IN CALGARY, EDMONTON

A new health-care service will be introduced here at month’s end, when specially trained paramedics begin home visits.

As part of an expanding Alberta Health Services program, the paramedics will offer patients care in their homes. They’ll provide wound care, intravenous medication and such diagnostic tests as an electrocardiogram. They’ll also be able to draw blood for lab tests, without a trip to the hospital.

“This is a real growth area and provides greater efficiencies for our health system,” says Ryan Kozicky, director of the “EMS Mobile Integrated Healthcare” program.

On July 31, the service will be launched in Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and communities within 50 kilometres of either city. Experienced paramedics from across southern Alberta have been recruited for the program.

Calgary served as a pilot project for the service, introduced there in 2013. It was expanded to Edmonton a year later.

Now it will cover 80 per cent of the province’s population, Kozicky says, operating daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Older patients, including those living in long-term care facilities, are expected to make the most use of the service.

Nearly 50 per cent of patients who head to the province’s emergency departments could be treated at home, Kozicky points out. Now physicians and other health-care providers can request paramedic care, reducing pressure on the province’s emergency rooms.

For patients receiving home care, he adds, the visiting nurse may also arrange in-home medical care.

Paramedics providing the new service will wear a more informal uniform, Kozicky says, and they’ll arrive in a specially equipped SUV vehicle — not an ambulance. A staff of seven will work from Lethbridge, he says, and another seven out of Medicine Hat.