None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
The ambulance service tends to transport the majority of patients they see to emergency departments for definitive assessment and treatment, despite the fact that many of these patients are not in need of emergency department care. This places a burden on the emergency department in terms of workload, and adds inconvenience to the patient due to transport to a hospital. The Extended Care Paramedic (ECP) model of care is based on training paramedics in acute assessment and treatment, so that they can recognise patients who do not require hospital admission, and treat these patients at home. This model of care has not been formally evaluated to ensure that the correct patients are identified to be treated in the community, and that this treatment is satisfactory.
Interventions
The ambulance service tends to transport the majority of patients they see to emergency departments. This places a burden on emergency departments and inconveniences the patient. The Extended Care Paramedic (ECP) model of care is based on training standard paramedics with a broader range of assessment and treatment skills that enables them to treat a large group of these patients at home and in their local community. The training is given to a small group of 6 Paramedics to enable a 24hr rost
The ambulance service tends to transport the majority of patients they see to emergency departments. This places a burden on emergency departments and inconveniences the patient. The Extended Care Paramedic (ECP) model of care is based on training standard paramedics with a broader range of assessment and treatment skills that enables them to treat a large group of these patients at home and in their local community. The training is given to a small group of 6 Paramedics to enable a 24hr roster. The training is over a month with monthly ongoing clinical training days. This model requires formal evaluation through a randomised controlled trial (RCT) to establish whether this is an improvement in patient outcome. The RCT will then be assessed after training and will last unitl 1000 patients have been treated or 1 year whichever comes first.
Sponsors
Sarah Hoyle
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Primary purpose
Treatment
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
0 to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
The study will be limited to the Kapiti region served by Wellington Free Ambulance. All calls coming in via the 111 system classified by the Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS) as category A, B and C. The electronic form of this system is called ProQA.
Exclusion criteria
Any call classified as an Echo life threatening call that require dual response. Categories 8, 9,14,15,22,24,33, and 40 as they are cases that would automatically require transport or are for patient transfer services.
Outcome results
None listed