An innovative service being offered at Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque will help to bring medical care to people in underserviced areas throughout the state.
The Community Paramedic program will train those who are currently paramedics and have at least three years of experience in the field to bring extended emergency and preventative medical services to those without easy access to a primary care physician. This could be in both rural and urban areas. The paramedics will collaborate across long distance with doctors in the city.
The model for this type of service was first developed in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia when a rural area lost its primary doctor. This proved to be such a success that it was implemented in several other Canadian provinces, the U.K., Australia, and several American states.
The program not only provides emergency care; paramedics will also visit seniors in their homes to monitor blood pressure, set up appointments with community care resources, and arrange Meals on Wheels. The preventative medicine piece has proven to lower the number of seniors who end up seeking care in hospital emergency rooms.
The program offers one year of extra training over and above the training the paramedics have already received. The first group is scheduled to graduate this spring.
Part of the mandate of the participants will be to provide healthcare information, and professional brochure printers can create pamphlets that will provide this.
