Nogales International
NOGALES, Ariz. — The Southeast Arizona Area Health Education Center (SEAHEC) and the Nogales Fire Department developed The Arizona Community Integrated Paramedic Pilot Project (CIPP) to improve community health outcomes through reducing non-emergency use of the 911 system. These reductions are being implemented through using the department’s 911 call data to gain insight into community health education needs and to train staff and allocate resources to meet those needs.
It is hoped that community health outcomes will be positively impacted by reducing hospital emergency department visits by chronic disease sufferers, lowering admission to hospital emergency rooms for high utilization users of the 911 system, and by reducing readmission in the selected population with chronic diseases and other issues which can be reduced through educational interventions.
SEAHEC and partner NFD were awarded a small grant from the Santa Cruz Community Foundation in August 2014. In September 2014 SEAHEC contracted two public health students to help the NFD develop a system for analyzing the data from 911 calls. Records from calls that occurred in 2013 and 2014 were used to look for patterns of 911 system utilization, including the relationships between chronic disease and other non-emergency cases and requests for emergency medical services.
Full story: Improving outcomes