Community Paramedics Bring Health Care Home

Mindy Dessert and Gail Campbell are a new kind of healthcare provider: a full-time community paramedic. Instead of responding to emergencies, like traditional paramedics, the two work to prevent them. As a part of UnityPoint Health-Meriter’s Mobile Integrated Health program, Dessert and Campbell make regular house visits and work with Madison’s most frequent, high-volume users of the 911 system and emergency department to empower them to take control over their own health.

The paramedics work closely with patients to help them manage their medications, provide emotional support, and to connect them to local resources like food banks and social workers. As a result, the patients involved in the program visited the ED half as much as they did the previous year and have experienced half as many hospital stays. The average number of 911 calls from these patients dropped from 13 per month to eight, and Meriter saved half a million dollars because of the program.

Sherry Casali, chief nursing executive at Meriter said of the program, “We saw many people slipping through the cracks. [Community paramedics] make sure that they have support and understanding of the right care at the right time for what they need.”

Read more about the Mobile Integrated Health program here.

Photo: Amber Arnold, Wisconsin State Journal