ATLANTA — Changes at Atlanta’s sole emergency ambulance service mean paramedics may now send callers with less-urgent ailments to neighborhood clinics instead of the emergency room.
Grady Emergency Medical Services leaders hope the program, believed by state officials and Grady to be the first of its kind in Georgia, will free emergency department staffers to focus on the most critically ill patients and give callers with less-urgent problems better service, said Dr. Arthur Yancey, the medical director of Grady EMS. It could also speed ambulance response.
“This is the vanguard,” Yancey said. “I do believe medical care is going this direction in the U.S.”
About 6 percent of the 100,000 calls Grady EMS receives each year, or between 15 and 20 a day, come from callers with sore throats, toothaches or other problems that one of the health system’s eight neighborhood clinics could easily handle, Yancey said.
The patients call for an ambulance because they lack transportation, health insurance or primary care physicians, Yancey and experts said. Most have low incomes. They know of no better place to get care but the emergency room at Grady, Atlanta’s charity hospital.
The state Department of Community Health approved Grady’s new system April 19. The changes began May 3. During the new system’s first phase, dispatchers identify which callers have one in a list of 20 less-urgent complaints, such as a ring stuck on a finger.
Paramedics confirm the caller’s condition at the scene. Patients who are adults, in stable condition, are in a normal mental state, can walk and sit on their own, and have straightforward medical histories have the option of being driven to a neighborhood clinic.
Costs to patients will drop drastically, Yancey said. Grady clinics charge between $20 and $75 per visit, depending on patient income. The emergency room charges non-urgent patients at least $220 to be evaluated and treated by a doctor.
Grady has not estimated how much money it might save through the program or how it may affect wait times for the emergency room because it depends on how often patients opt for clinic care, Yancey said.
Later this year, dispatchers will transfer less-urgent calls to nurses, who will screen patients by phone.
Currently, one Grady clinic ---the DeKalb Grady Health Center --- is receiving less-urgent patients.
Copyright 2010 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution