Creating a new EMS value proposition with mobile integrated healthcare
911 nurse triage and a high utilizer group program are exponentially reducing transports and healthcare expenditures while increasing patient satisfaction
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This article originally appeared in the Nov. 7, 2019, issue of the Paramedic Chief Leadership Briefing, Paramedic career mapping | MIH value | Affordable community paramedicine. Read the full briefing and add the Paramedic Chief eNewsletter to your subscriptions.
They exist in almost every EMS system across the country. Your medics are dispatched to that all-too-familiar address, typically for a low-acuity medical call. While responding to the call (and taking the precious ambulance resource out of the mix for a potentially higher acuity response), one of the crew members says, “Ya know, someone should do something for this patient to keep us from having to respond all the time.”
EMS-based mobile integrated healthcare (MIH) programs have been around for almost a decade, and some have published outcomes from their programs. While high-profile studies have questioned the value of “traditional” EMS from a patient outcome perspective, data being published on the outcomes of MIH programs are revealing not only dramatic reduction in acute care utilization, but also improvements in patient outcomes and experience of care. These data may create the new value proposition for EMS in the U.S.