Mobile integrated health (MIH) and community paramedicine are emerging health care models that deliver health care outside of traditional settings like hospitals and clinics.
By delivering health care in homes and community settings using providers like community paramedics, there is an opportunity to help address growing workforce shortages, expand access to care and improve patient outcomes.
The Health Fund is excited to announce it has partnered with the Patterson Family Foundation on their recent $1.5 million grant to the Missouri Emergency Medical Services Association to launch a groundbreaking pilot program in six rural counties across Kansas and Missouri to demonstrate the effectiveness of MIH.
The Health Fund believes in the future of MIH and has partnered with the Patterson Family Foundation to fund components of this program.
The Health Fund has contributed more than $400,000 to provide policy research, support and technical assistance with program evaluation for the project and Kansas sites. The Health Fund also will collaborate with state and local partners to provide advocacy for this model, as well as assist the Kansas sites in identifying and securing grants or contracts that support MIH.
Participating pilot sites are Dickinson, Franklin and Kingman counties in Kansas, and Caldwell, Carroll and Ray counties in Missouri.
“We need innovative ways to improve access to care, especially in our rural communities,” said David Jordan, Health Fund president and CEO. “This new health care model shows tremendous promise, and we look forward to seeing the implementation and results from this pilot project.”
The project, called “Thriving Through MIH,” aims to enhance health care delivery by utilizing patient-centered, mobile resources in out-of-hospital environments. It’s specifically designed to meet the needs of underserved populations in rural areas.
MIH leverages and maximizes the skills of paramedics as community paramedics, expanding their role to assist with public health, primary health care, behavioral health care and preventive health care services.
With this model, community paramedics provide care in a patient’s home, and in true emergencies, sustain care until an ambulance is dispatched.
They can perform the functions of a clinician, such as labs, intubation, ultrasounds, injections and vaccinations, or the functions of a community health worker, such as performing environmental assessments, ensuring patient safety, creating access to healthy food, completing home repairs and more.
Community paramedics can also connect patients to physicians, nurse practitioners and other qualified providers for treatment via telehealth and eventually to a primary care facility for comprehensive, integrated care.
“Community paramedics can change how and where care is delivered,” Jordan said. “They have the potential to make a significant impact in our rural communities.”
The pilot project also will focus heavily on addressing social drivers of health and tracking care gap closures, such as housing, employment, transportation, food security and more.
The Missouri EMS Association said the project has the potential to significantly increase access to care for underserved populations, reduce “no shows” that can impact patient outcomes, increase access to resources that address social drivers of health, and improve patient-centered care and patient engagement in self-management.
Additionally, the projectwill provide opportunities for earlier intervention to address risk factors that contribute to the leading causes of death.
“MIH is revolutionizing the way health care delivery occurs in rural, underserved areas,” said Justin Duncan, Missouri EMS president. “It provides diverse, inclusive, whole-person care outside the ‘bricks-and-mortar’ setting in the right place at the right time – saving health care resources that can be directed elsewhere.”
Additional collaborators on the project include: Community Asset Builders, Mid-America Regional Council and the Kansas Emergency Medical Services Association.
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