Community Paramedicine/Mobile Integrated Healthcare in The United States

Mobile Integrated Healthcare (MIH), also called Community Paramedicine (CP) or EMS 3.0, is a novel approach to prehospital care. With the use of specially trained paramedics, MIH-CP seeks to fill the current healthcare gaps in communities by facilitating an interconnected healthcare system. This project investigates current United States MIH-CP legislation in effort to provide Indiana Department of Homeland Security with updated regulations to aid in formulating future MIH-CP policy recommendations. Information was collected by primary literature review of state legislation. Data collected was based off 3 criteria: whether the state mentioned MIH-CP in their regulations, were educational standards outlined and the details of their requirements, and was it possible to bill for MIH-CP services. Numerical data that was collected was analyzed by comparing the mean and median of the applicable states. There are currently 24 states that mention MIH-CP in their state legislation but far more states have the practice occurring without regulations. Of those 24 states, 9 of them have outlined requirements for what a para-medic must accomplish in order to earn the title of Community Paramedic. Within these states there is great variance in the minimum standards of educational requirements ranging from 10 hours up to 300 hours. There was a mean requirement of 68.4 hours and a median requirement of 100 hours. Although 24 states have regulations for MIH-CP, only 8 states have laws that allow some kind of reimbursement for a community paramedic’s service. MIH-CP’s role in the EMS system is just beginning to be realized but current legislation is lagging behind. Without clear guidelines and regulations, EMS agencies must overcome obstacles that are slowing progress and hindering care. It is up to state legislators to capitalize on the potential of MIH-CP by enacting clear regulations that allow for a patient centered and interconnected healthcare system to emerge.

Creator

• Kaufman, Michael
• Marks, Stephen

Language

• English

Date created

• 11/22/2019

Resource type

• poster

Source

• mucom_rd_133

Rights statement

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/