At least 207 potentially life-saving home visits highlighted the inaugural year of Community Paramedicine for Long Term Care Program in Greater Sudbury.
This builds upon prior indications of success, which the city’s elected officials praised a few months ago as helping seniors stay in their own homes for longer.
A total of 1,456 patient contacts were made last year, including 940 home visits conducted from the program’s May 17 start to the end of 2021. The 207 “just-in-time” visits were initiated by the patient, their family or a health-care partner, and would have otherwise been calls to 911.
Out of the 207 calls, 93 per cent of patients were able to remain home because of the interventions and follow-up care provided by the community paramedic.
The Community Paramedicine for Long Term Care Program received $6.5 million in provincial funding in early 2021 to operate until March 31, 2024. Community paramedics provide 24/7 ongoing and/or episodic support to seniors who are either on a long-term care home wait list or are at risk of becoming reliant on hospital admission or needing long-term care.
There are currently more than 600 people on the long-term care home wait list in Greater Sudbury, and the program currently has 368 active patients.
The program’s 10 community paramedics conduct some phone and video consultations, but the majority of patients prefer home visits, which “are in keeping with best practice for frail elderly for whom communication barriers can be significant,” according to a municipal report by Melissa Roney, the city’s deputy chief of emergency services.
The Community Paramedicine for Long-Term Care Program is one of a handful of community paramedicine programs delivered by Greater Sudbury Paramedic Services.
The Care Transitions Community Paramedicine Program included 1,799 visits last year, including 229 just-in-time calls to their clients who are high-risk patients transitioning from acute care to community and/or self-supported in-home care.
The Health Promotion Community Paramedicine program is dedicated to maintaining and expanding health promotion, education and injury prevention to mitigate emergency calls and hospital visits and keep the at-risk aged population healthy and at home. Since the pandemic began, they have conducted 9,877 in-home COVID-19 tests, including 6,052 last year.
The Ontario Health North Remote Clinical Monitoring Pilot offers remote clinical care and monitoring of COVID-18 patients and other vulnerable patients, which helps reduce the risk of infection among health-care workers. A five-month pilot version of the program ended in December 2020 and was extended through the 2021-22 fiscal year. It’s staffed by one community paramedic 12 hours per day who helped support 369 discharged patients last year and continues to support 11 currently active patients who are in their homes and recovering from either COVID-19 or are managing chronic health conditions.
“The strengths of this program are the collaborative nature of our partnerships with local Medical Physicians who act as medical oversight, the comfort that comes with regular or on demand paramedic contact to monitor a patients’ well being with phone consultations / daily visits, and reduced exposures to communicable disease for both patients and the community,” according to Roney’s report.
