By Bill Carey
SA国际传媒
CHICAGO 鈥� The non-profit organization Medical Home Network is one year into an innovative community paramedicine partnership with the Chicago Fire Department.
The partnership is showing successful initial results in its work, 鈥痳别辫辞谤迟别诲.
One of the initial indicators of success is a decrease in unplanned hospital and emergency room visits among participants in the program. They attribute this achievement to visits by community paramedics from the Chicago Fire Department.
鈥淲hat we found is that our paramedics had a lot of desire, but not a lot of resources to connect individuals,鈥� District Chief Jonathan Zaentz said. 鈥淢HN had a lot of resources, but a lot of difficulty sometimes connecting and reaching out to individuals to put those two things together.鈥�
The Medical Home Network acts as the bridge connecting Chicago Fire Department community paramedics with partner practices such as Chicago Family Health Center, Sinai Medical Group, and Friend Health.
鈥淲e look for patients who are not engaged, and they have chronic diseases such as hypertension, COPD, diabetes, and they鈥檙e not being managed properly,鈥� said Friend Health Director of Care Coordination Tracey Robinson.
A team of eight full-time Chicago Fire Department paramedics is dedicated to this work, assisting patients with various needs, which include arranging transportation, providing nutritional support, installing functional fire alarms and supplying equipment such as scales and glucometers.