Pharmacist Involvement in a Community Paramedicine Team

Abstract

Imbedding a pharmacist into a CPT provides a unique expansion of pharmacy services and a novel approach to address hospital readmissions.

A scoping study and qualitative assessment of care planning and case management in community paramedicine

“…Program initiated enrolment followed a case management approach designed for frequent paramedic service callers or patients deemed eligible for enrolment through other disease management programs. In total, eight community paramedicine programs described this type of enrolment; in four programs this was the only means of enrolment (31,33,34,36,37,41,45,47). Most programs included more than one means of enrolment (see Table 2).…”

“…The characteristics of care planning that were found can be described within three categories; assessment, intervention, and collaboration. All but one of the programs described paramedics completing a functional assessment or other program-specific assessment (26,(31)(32)(33)(34)37,41,45,47). The other program described case reviews to facilitate development of individualized dispatch protocols (36).…”

“…The other program described case reviews to facilitate development of individualized dispatch protocols (36). Assessment could also be integrated with chronic disease management activities, found in six programs (26,(31)(32)(33)(34)47), or advanced care planning, found in three programs (31,37,47). Advances in mobile technologies were found to enhance assessment with all but two programs including some aspect of point-of-care testing (26,31,32,34,37,41,45,47).…”

“…All of these programs included an aspect of care planning that included either emergency department avoidance or an individualized dispatch protocol (26,31,32,34,36,37,41,45,47). The one exception to these motivations was a program initiated at hospital discharge with an objective of preventing re-admission (33).…”

“…The exact intervention provided was dependent on level of certification and autonomy of paramedics. Additionally, half of the programs indicated that health promotion or disease prevention were included as aspects of care planning (26,(32)(33)(34)47).…”