By Joe Covelli, PAAW Executive Director

On July 20, the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health sponsored a Community Paramedicine Stakeholders Forum.  The Eau Claire event was attended by over 130 participants, to include EMS agencies, medical directors, technical colleges, hospitals, home health agencies, and industry associations.

The program began with a discussion panel on Wisconsin community paramedicine activities.  One of the panelists, Jennifer Ullsvik with the Wisconsin Office of Preparedness and Emergency Health Care, mentioned two community paramedic programs have been approved in the state, to include the cities of Green Bay and Madison, and a handful of other requests are pending approval by the EMS Section to commence community paramedicine operations.  We also know this past year there have been about five community paramedic trial programs, mostly in the Milwaukee area, to identify frequent 911 users.  Trials at West Allis and North Shore Fire Departments have set up in-home programs with high user individuals to be proactive and are by all accounts successfully addressing their care needs.

Mrs. Ullsvik attributed some of the delay in plan approvals in two areas.  One, “Is community paramedicine in the current definitions of what an EMT can do?” and, two, “Does community paramedicine fall into the arena of home health?”.  On the latter point, her office has asked for a legal opinion by the Department's attorney.   She continued by stating her office is “on-board with this (referencing community paramedicine) and that proposed legislation will help”.

PAAW President Patrick Ryan, also a panelist, spoke to the work currently being done to draft legislation to include “Community Paramedic” and “Community EMT”.  He hopes to have legislation introduced in the fall session.

Rounding out the panel included Terry Gonderzik with the Chippewa Valley Technical College and Jerry Biggart representing the Wisconsin EMS Advisory Board.  Mr. Gonderzik indicated the Wisconsin Technical College System is looking to offer community paramedicine instruction as a “single” education entity, offering the same course and content instruction statewide.  Taking this approach is currently before the Technical College board of directors for approval as a system.  Mr. Biggart stated the EMS Advisory Board established a community paramedicine sub committee to work through the details and bring a recommendation to the full EMS Advisory Board, which will be presented to the Department of Health Services.

The afternoon program was spotlighted by three representatives leading the effort in Minnesota, to include:  Dr. Michael Wilcox and Buck McAlpin, both from North Memorial Medical Center, and Kai Hjermstad with Hennepin Technical College, Minneapolis. The predominate message was community paramedicine is a “gap filling” initiative that provides access to health care.

If you would like to join the community paramedicine conversation, there are several opportunities highlighted below.

1. Sign up for the Rural Health CP list serve.  The link is https://lists.wisc.edu/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=cp

2. PAAW created a webpage dedicated to serve as a central point of communication and information of historical significance for those interested in CP.  The link is http://paaw.us/cp.

3.  The Paramedic Systems of Wisconsin conference in Green Bay on Thursday, September 24 will include Minnesota's Buck McAlpin as a presenter speaking on community paramedicine.  The conference website is http://psow.org/.

4. PAAW President Patrick Ryan hosts a regular community paramedicine conference call.  Refer to item 2 above to find out when the next call is scheduled and the dial in number.  The group is currently working on community paramedicine legislation.